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Book l^\) ^ 

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COPWIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LAWRENCE 
READER AND SPEAKER 



The Lawrence 
Reader and Speaker 

A COMPILATION OF MASTERPIECES 
IN POETRY AND PROSE 



INCLUDING MANY OF THE GREATEST ORATIONS OF ALL AGES 

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS, POETS, AND 

ORATORS, AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON THEIR PRODUCTIONS 

AND STYLES. DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES, 

SCHOOLS, SEMINARIES, LITERARY SOCIETIES, 

AND ALL PERSONS WISHING TO EXCEL AS 

READERS AND PUBLIC SPEAKERS 



BY 
EDWIN GORDON LAWRENCE 

TEACHER OP ORATORY AND DRAMATIC ART, AND AUTHOR OF 
"the POWER OF SPEECH," ETC. 




CHICAGO 

A. C, McCLURG & CO. 

1911 






Copyright 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1911 



Published, March, 1911 



PS£SS OF THE VAIL COMPANY 
COSHOCTON, V. S. A. 



©CI.A2837G5 



INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OP 
PROFESSOR PHILIP LAWRENCE 

WHO FOR FIFTY YEARS DEVOTED HIS LIFE 
TO TEACHING THE ART OF SPEECH 

A NOBLE MAN, AN UNSELFISH TEACHER, 

A DEVOTED PARENT, 

AND A LOVER OF MAN AND GOD 

"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well" 



PREFACE 

THE arts of Reading and Speaking have, of 
late years, been greatly neglected, and it is 
the aim of the editor of this compilation to en- 
deavor to arouse new interest by presenting, in 
convenient form and attractive guise, many master- 
pieces of Hterature, and specimens of oratory, 
Hkely to awaken, in the minds of students in schools 
and colleges, a desire to know more of these use- 
ful and dehghtful arts. Nothing has a greater 
tendency to improve the diction, and enlarge the 
vocabulary of a speaker, than a study of the works 
of great writers and orators, as man mentally 
grows by what he feeds on just as he does phys- 
ically ; and by a careful perusal of well-constructed 
sentences, polished and expressive language, he 
will learn to use instinctively the proper form and 
expression of words when communicating his 
thoughts. The matter may be that of Shake- 
speare, Milton, Demosthenes, Cicero, Webster, or 
Longfellow, but a careful student who reads to 
learn and, while reading, bears in mind the saying 
[yii] 



PREFACE 

of Confucius, " Learning without thought is labor 
lost, and thought without learning is death to the 
mind," will incorporate the wisdom of others into 
his own being, and give it out again in his own 
manner as though it had never existed in any 
other form. 

It is the opinion of the editor that only by in- 
telligent and painstaking efforts are persons made 
good readers and speakers, and he therefore ad- 
vises all who are desirous of excelHng in these arts 
to disabuse themselves of the idea that oratory is 
a God-given gift, that all they have to do is to 
sit idly by and await its coming, because in all 
cases of real greatness — not appsirent greatness 
— success as orators has only come to those who 
went in search of it. Those who achieved success 
without much labor, men like Patrick Henry and 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, would have accom- 
plished far greater results had they stored up 
knowledge in their youth instead of idhng away 
their time lolling by brooks or wasting their 
strength in dissipation. 

This book is intended to be purely a Reader and 
Speaker, presenting to the student the finished 
matter of expression and not the means of gain- 
ing the art of vocal delivery, but to all who desire 
to take up the technical part of vocal work, the 
[ viii ] 



PREFACE 

editor recommends his text-book on the speaking 
voice, " The Power of Speech," which contains ex- 
plicit instructions for the cultivation of the voice, 
and for gaining the power of interpreting thought 
by means of vocal expression. 

In this collection of masterpieces the editor is 
bold enough to insert a few articles of his own, 
not that they are entitled by merit to associate 
with such company, but rather suffered to remain, 
by the kindness of the shepherd, as stray sheep 
that have wandered in from another fold. 

E. G. L. 

New York, 
January^ 1911* 



[ix] 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introductory: Reading and the Art of Speech — 

Oratory 3 

Examples of the Five Classes of Oratory: 

First Class — Philosophic: "Communion with 
God." Cardinal Newman 27 

Second Class — Demonstrative : " On Capital Pun- 
ishment." Victor Hugo 31 

Third Class — Forensic: "No Right under the 
Constitution to Hold Subject States." George 
F. Hoar 36 

Fourth Class — Ijegislative : " Cuba must be 
Free." John M. Thurston 41 

Fifth Class — Social: "The Medical Profession." 
Oliver Wendell Holmes 45 

A Child's Dream of a Star. Charles Dickens ... 49 
The Genius of Charles Dickens. William Make- 
peace Thackeray 55 

Digging for the Thought. John Buskin .... 59 

The Perfect Orator. B. B. Sheridan 62 

Public Opinion and the Sword. T. B. Macaulay . . 64 

On the American War. William Pitt, Lord Chatham 67 
Panegyric on William of Orange. William C. 

Plunket 71 

Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Edmund Burke 73 
Intellectual Superiority of Christian Believers. 

Thomas Erskine 77 

On the Irish Disturbance Bill. Daniel O'Connell , 81 
Public Spirit of the Athenians. Demosthenes . . 83 
Great Orators and Their Training, from the Dia- 
logue on Oratory. Marcus Tullius Cicero ... 86 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Farewell Address to the Senate. Henry Clay . . 93 
South American Ikdependence as Related to the 

United States. Henry Clay 98 

On the Greek Struggle for Independence. Henry 

Clay 100 

" Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death." Patrick 

Henry 101 

Consequences which would have Resulted had 

England Conquered America. Patrick Henry . 108 
The Strenuous Life. Theodore Roosevelt .... Ill 

Books. Ralph Waldo Emerson 116 

Industry Necessary to the Attainment of Eloquence. 

Henry Ware 130 

Idols. Wendell Phillips 123 

Oration on the Centennial of the Birth of O'Con- 

NELL. Wendell Phillips 127 

The Permanency of Empire. Wendell Phillips . . 133 
The Present Age. William Ellery Channing . . . 134 
Education in a Republic. Judah Philip Benjamin . 137 
Massachusetts and South Carolina. George F. Hoar 141 

Genius. Orville Dewey 146 

The Future of the South. Henry W. Grady . . . 150 
The Confederate Soldier's Return from Appomat- 
tox. .Henry W. Grady 154 

The Second Inaugural Address. Abraham Lincoln . 157 
Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Horace Greeley . .160 
Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby .... 162 
Valuable Hints for Students. John Todd . . . 163 
The Spectacle of the Heavens. Edward Everett . 167 

Peace and War. Henry Ward Beecher 169 

Raising the Flag. Henry Ward Beecher .... 172 

England against War. Henry Ward Beecher . . . 173 
Poverty and the Gospel. Henry Ward Beecher . . 175 
The Immensity of Creation. O. M. Mitchell . . . 179 
The March of the Flag. Albert J. Beveridge . . . 181 
The Blind Preacher. William Wirt ...... 184 

[xii] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Natural Rights of Man. Jeremiah 8, Black . 188 
Constructive Treason. William Pinkney .... 193 
The Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jeffer- 
son 202 

The Execution of a Madman is Murder. William H. 

Seward 209 

Plea for the Union. William H. Setoard .... 215 
American Independence. Samuel Adams .... 219 
Self-Preservation the First Law of Nature. David 

Paul Brown 222 

Pharisaism of Reform. George W. Curtis .... 227 
The Call of Freedom. George W. Curtis .... 230 
The Duties of an Advocate Require the Highest 

Moral Courage. James T. Brady 233 

Eulogy of President Garfield. James G. Blaine . . 237 
The Law of Self-Defence. Seargent 8. Prentiss . . 240 

Education. Horace Mann 246 

Sanctity of the Union. Alexander H. Stephens . . 249 
The Restoration of the Union. Alexander H. 

Stephens 253 

New England. Caleb Cushing 256 

The Bunker Hill Monument. Daniel Webster . . 259 
The Greek Revolution. Daniel Webster .... 266 
Religious Character of the Pilgrims. Daniel Web- 
ster 273 

Crime Its Own Detector. Daniel Webster .... 276 
South Carolina and Massachusetts. Daniel Webster 280 
The Constitution the Safeguard of Liberty. Daniel 

Webster 284 

Shakespeare. Edwin Gordon Lawrence 287 

Destiny. Edwin Gordon Lawrence 293 

Eve's Account of Her First Day. John Milton •. . 298 

The Ocean. Lord Byron 300 

Abraham Lincoln. James Russell Lowell .... 303 

The Lost Leader. Robert Browning 305 

Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant 307 

[ xiii ] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Daffodils. Williom Wordsworth 310 

The Chambered Nautilus. Oliver Wendell Holmes . 311 
The Making of Man. Algernon Charles Swinburne , 313 
My Heart's in the Highlands. Robert Burns . . 315 

Flowers. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 316 

The Individuality of Woman. Alfred Tennyson . . 319 

Burns. John Greenleaf Whittier . 321 

Ode to the Bards. John Keats 326 

To THE Skylark. Percy Bysshe Shelley 328 

The Chase. Sir Walter Scott 332 

The Raven. Edgar Allan Poe 338 

Marc Antony's Oration. Shakespeare 345 

Speech of Brutus. Shakespeare 349 



[xiv] 



^1 



THE LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



THE LAWRENCE READER 
AND SPEAKER 

INTRODUCTORY 

READING AND THE ART OF SPEECH 

TN order to read well we must look upon words 
-■■ as mere symbols, things that represent ideas 
and thoughts but are not, in themselves, the living 
beings they become when properly joined together 
and impregnated with life by the expressive power 
of the voice. They are symbols representing ideas, 
and signs that direct us on the way to the delivery 
of the vocal message, and should be looked upon 
merely as means to an end and not as an end in 
themselves. Aim to speak thoughts, not words. 
Look beyond the words, see the idea they repre- 
sent and then express it by the voice. This is 
much easier said than done, and before we can 
hope to be good readers, hope to express by the 
tones of the voice the meaning of the words, hope 
to so govern the voice as to interpret the thought 
[3] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

by means of inflection, emphasis, pitch, force, and 
time, we must thoroughly understand the vocal 
mechanism and have it absolutely under control. 

Reading is, in some respects, more difficult than 
speaking. In reading, the eye must first carry 
the idea to the brain, the brain then conveys it 
to the vocal organs and it is then transferred into 
words; whereas in speech, the brain at once sets 
the vocal mechanism into action and the thought 
is given immediate utterance. Reading requires 
two mental actions, speaking but one. 

We must gain the faculty of seeing individual 
words and yet grasping them collectively, because 
the individual word often indicates how the thought 
should be expressed, but we cannot tell what the 
thought is until we have read the phrase and, 
sometimes, the sentence. For instance: The 
word " if " in the following, " If it were so, it 
was a grievous fault," shows the reader that the 
opening clause is conditional, but he cannot tell 
what the completed thought is until he finishes the 
concluding clause, therefore he must see the word 
" if " in order to note the conditional, but he must 
also quickly sweep his eye along the entire thought 
in order to know how to inflect and emphasize the 
voice. In the following, " I said an elder soldier, 
not a better," it is essential that we grasp the en- 
[4] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tire phrase in order to distinguish the contrast 
between the words " elder " and " better." Unless 
we are able to do this, we will see nothing but in- 
dividual words and speak individual words, just 
as the child in days now happily gone by saw 
nothing but three letters, d-o-g, whereas he is now 
taught to see a word — dog. The reader must 
carry out the same principle by seeing and speak- 
ing the thought instead of the individual words 
that make it up. All this requires practice, and 
no one ever became a good reader except by 
practice. 

The words of the Bard of Avon — 

" Mend your speech a little 
Lest it may mar your fortunes/' 

written over three hundred years ago, are applica- 
ble to-day in as great a measure as then. While 
they were not used in the sense in which they are 
applied in this instance, still, if a new setting is 
given to them, they will assist in the worthy cause 
of calling attention to the necessity of mending 
the speech of to-day. 

It is unfortunate that the modern speaking voice 
fails so utterly in conveying thought. Through 
a failure to employ the breathing muscles in con- 
trolling voice there follows a misuse of the larynx, 
[5] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

which produces harsh, faulty, and disagreeable 
tones that injure the speaker, distress the listener, 
and fail to convey the meaning of the spoken 
words. 

Little attention is paid to modulation, the tones 
being allowed to come into the air without regard 
to pitch, few persons caring to take the trouble 
to suit the quality of the voice to the thought 
which is conveyed by the words, the majority using 
a high, shrill voice that pierces the ear and carries 
with it little else but noise. So, also, is articula- 
tion much neglected, some words coming into be- 
ing without a head, such as the word " her " in 
sentences like, " I told her what you said," many 
persons running the words " told " and " her " to- 
gether and saying, " I told 'er what you said," 
other words being produced with mutilated bodies, 
such as " independence," " constitution," and 
" Virginia," and others without a tail — especially 
is the appendage missing from words ending in 
" g," such as " going," " coming," " running," 
and " jumping." These faults are not committed 
by the uneducated alone, but by the educated as 
well, clergymen, lawyers, teachers, and actors be- 
ing among the offenders. 

From this it appears that reading and speaking 
are not the mere seeing and reproducing of words, 
[6] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

either from the printed page or from the tablet 
of the mind, but they are the conveying of thought 
which is analyzed and explained by the tones of 
the reader's or speaker's voice, which has been 
trained by careful practice to interpret by its 
pitch, time, force, direction, and quality the mean- 
ing of the spoken word. 

William Ellery Channing beautifully and for- 
cibly sums up the matter in the following extract 
from his magnificent lecture, " Self-Culture " : 

" The power of utterance should be included by 
all in their plans of self-culture. , . . No 
commentary throws such a light on a great poem 
or any impassioned work of literature as the voice 
of a reader or speaker, who brings to the task 
a deep feeling of its author and rich and various 
powers of expression. A crowd electrified by a 
sublime thought, or softened into a harmonizing 
sorrow under such a voice, partakes a pleasure at 
once exquisite and refined." 

ORATOEY 

It has been the custom of late years for persons 
to sneer at the idea of oratorical preparation, 
and for the majority of newspapers to belittle the 
influence of the orator, but now it looks as though 
oratory was coming into its own, and that it would 
[7] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



soon again occupy the proud position in the eyes 
of the world that for ages it occupied. The 
power of the press is great, but it has not taken, 
and it never will take, the place of the spoken word. 
It has caused a great change in the form of ora- 
tory through educating and informing the masses, 
thus leaving to the orator the vitalizing of the 
matter the substance of which is already in the 
minds of the listeners; but the advocate, trained, 
educated, skilled in the use of vocal and physical 
expression, was, is, and always will be the moulder 
of thought and the leader of action. 

Had it not been for the burning spoken words 
of Patrick Henry, dehvered in the House of Bur- 
gesses of Virginia on the question of arming the 
militia to oppose the oppressions of the mother 
country, it is not likely that the members of the 
legislative assembly of Virginia could have been 
swayed from their fixed purpose to do nothing 
that would estrange them from the king to whom 
they gladly gave allegiance, and whose kingly 
rights their ancestors had fought to uphold on the 
fields of Naseby and Marston Moor, and who fol- 
lowed the royal banner of Prince Rupert at Bris- 
tol. No printed words could have swayed them 
from their fixed convictions, but the towering form 
of the young plebeian, alive in every limb with 
[8] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

emotion, the flashing eye, the beaming face, the 
expressive gestures, the volcanic flow of words, all 
expressive of the spirit of Hberty which was per- 
sonified in his person, carried the message that he 
held in his heart straight to the minds of his 
listeners and changed that hostile majority into a 
minority. All this was but the forerunner of the 
battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Yorktown, 
the confederation of the colonies, and the birth of 
the greatest repubhc upon which the sun ever 
shone. 

When the time came for the welding of thirteen 
States into a nation the pen of Hamilton was 
mighty, but mightier still was his voice when, in 
the New York State convention, held for the rati- 
fication of the Constitution, he overcame the large 
majority originally opposed to its adoption, and, 
with the aid of a handful of Federalists, convinced 
the upholders of the rights of the States that 
liberty would be strengthened and not weakened 
by forming a centrahzed government whose power 
would be wisely checked by the safeguards with 
which the Constitution protected the rights of the 
people through their State governments, and which 
also curbed the power of the young States then 
distrustful and envious of one another. The able 
articles which came from the pen of Hamilton and 
[9] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

his fellow Federalists failed to accomplish their 
purpose, which was the election of a majority of 
the delegates to the convention pledged to the 
support of the Constitution, for when the con- 
vention convened, Hamilton found a large ma- 
jority, under the leadership of Clinton, utterly 
opposed to its ratification. In face of this ap- 
parently insurmountable obstacle Hamilton strug- 
gled bravely on, explaining, arguing, entreating, 
and demanding, until, finally, after many days of 
incessant labor, his efforts were crowned with suc- 
cess and the Constitution was ratified. Hamilton 
the orator accomplished the work which Hamilton 
the writer had failed to achieve. 

The Emancipation Proclamation struck the 
shackles from the slaves, but it was the matchless 
logic of Lincoln displayed in the debates with 
Douglas that made the proclamation possible, and 
his Cooper Union speech that convinced the people 
of the North that the fathers of our country in- 
tended to include the black man as well as the 
white in the Declaration of Independence, and that 
the framers of the Constitution meant to give the 
federal government the power to resist the terri- 
torial extension of slavery. 

Did oratory strike the shackles from the slave? 
Yes. Slavery perished at the mandate of men 
[10] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

like William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 
and Abraham Lincoln, who devoted their lives to 
a cause that had few followers at the time they 
relinquished all that most men hold dear, and, 
buckling on the armor of truth as they saw it, 
they went forward on their mission until slavery 
had vanished from the soil of the United States. 

Thomas Paine did much for American liberty, 
but Paine 'failed in his efforts to incorporate in 
the Declaration of Independence his views regard- 
ing universal liberty, but had he been as great 
an orator as he was a writer, he might have in- 
fluenced the committee to accept his views, and the 
slavery question might have been forever settled. 
But, no, he failed in his efforts with the pen just 
as Hamilton, at a later period, failed in his use 
of the same weapon, but not being the orator 
Hamilton was, he never succeeded in retrieving 
his fortunes and died a disappointed man. 

Jefferson, the great apostle of Democracy, al- 
though a slave holder, believed in the right of 
every man, black as well as white, to the right of 
" life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and 
in his draft of the Declaration were the strictures 
on the king's repeated veto of colonial laws re- 
pealing the law which permitted the slave trade, 
but, these views being disapproved by many dele- 

[11] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

gates, they were stricken from the draft. Thus 
again did an able writer, but a poor speaker, fail 
in impressing his ideas upon others. Jefferson, 
while an expert with the pen, and a splendidly 
educated man, was a poor speaker. In fact, it is 
doubtful if he ever delivered a speech, and conse- 
quently was compelled to rely on others to express 
his views in the many legislative assembhes of 
which he was a member. 

Oratory and public speaking are commonly 
looked upon as being one and the same thing, 
but this supposition is erroneous. True, they are 
of the same nature, as the primary object of both 
is to convey thought, but in reality they are al- 
most as separate and distinct as speaking and 
writing. 

Oratory must have truth as its basic principle, 
whereas public speaking does not concern itself 
with the truth or falsity of a question or propo- 
sition. The orator must be sincere, the pubhc 
speaker need not be, provided he is actor enough 
to hide his insincerity. Oratory, in its true sense, 
is spontaneous and governs the orator. Public 
speaking is artificial and is ever under the speak- 
er's control. Oratory spoke in the person of 
Demosthenes demanding that the Athenians arouse 
themselves from their lethargy; in Cicero hurling 
[12] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

denunciation against Cataline ; in Chatham espous- 
ing the cause of the colonists ; in Patrick Henry 
demanding Hberty or death ; in Robert Emmet ex- 
posing the injustice of his trial; in Henry Ward 
Beecher addressing the hostile audiences in Eng- 
land during the dark days of our Civil War, and 
in all cases where the cause or principle governed 
the speaker and he gave expression to his senti- 
ments irrespective of the consequences to himself 
or to others. 

Public speaking is well illustrated by the lawyer 
who is defending a cKent whom he knows to be 
guilty of the crime charged, and yet whose duty 
to his profession compels him to act as the de- 
fender of the rights of the criminal as though 
positive of the defendant's innocence. The law- 
yer pleads at the bar of the court for his client 
merely as an instrument through which the client 
speaks, and strives by every means in his power 
to enable the one charged with crime to escape 
from its consequences. This being the case, the 
lawyer could just as skilfully prosecute the de- 
fendant as defend him. He could argue equally 
well on either side of the question, consequently as 
both sides of a proposition cannot be true the 
lawyer cannot, in such a case, be sincere, but is 
forced to hide his knowledge of the prisoner's 
[13] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

guilt, control his feelings of detestation of the 
crime, and speak only from his desire to achieve 
the acquittal of his client. 

Spellbinders are public speakers, but not ora- 
tors, although at times true oratory falls from 
the lips of some of these humble party workers. 
Clergymen, lawyers, lecturers, politicians, and 
other public men are, generally speaking, public 
speakers, and only in exceptional cases are they 
orators. Truth, absolute sincerity, is the founda- 
tion of oratory, and where this exists, the means 
of expression, under the inspiration of the moment, 
will, in many cases, spring forward to convey the 
message. The ignorant murderer on the scaffold, 
standing on the brink of eternity, has been known 
to speak with the eloquence of perfect oratory, 
whereas the public speaker must fit himself by 
training and practice to use his powers of expres- 
sion without being in any manner moved by its 
spirit or depending on the coming of the in- 
spiration. 

Most renowned orators have prepared them- 
selves for the work before them by intelligent study 
of the means by which alone they could achieve 
success, such as cultivating the voice, bringing out 
the thought by proper emphasis and inflection, 
gesticulation that would strengthen the spoken 
[14] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

word, and easy flow of language, but they have 
always relied on the justice of their cause to bring 
them success, and not on the witchery of their 
eloquence. The pubhc speaker, on the other hand, 
just as thoroughly prepared as the orator, is gov- 
erned by some motive other than truth, and relies 
solely on his vocal and intellectual attainments to 
win the victory that could not be his if justice 
alone prevailed. 

From the time of Demosthenes down to the 
present day, orators have been made and not bom. 
In making this assertion I am, I know, flying in 
the face of general belief, but general belief is 
often founded upon ignorance, and in the case of 
oratory, ignorance is the only foundation for the 
existence of the belief that orators are bom with 
their oratorical powers full-fledged. 

Demosthenes in his youth was ungainly, weak 
physically, and defective vocally, but possessed of 
indomitable courage. He became a pupil of 
Isaeus, who was a great teacher, as well as a great 
orator, and from him he learned how to use his 
voice, arrange his thoughts and clothe them with 
appropriate speech. 

Henry Ward Beecher was handicapped in his 
early manhood in much the same manner as De- 
mosthenes, and became an orator only by incessant 
[15] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

labor. On entering college, Beecher imagined he 
had an enlarged tongue, deformed palate, and 
other vocal defects that would forever prevent the 
realization of his hope of becoming an effective 
speaker, but it was his good fortune to fall into 
the hands of an excellent teacher of elocution who 
soon convinced him that his ailments were mainly 
imaginary, and that all he required was to know 
how to use his voice in order to become a good 
speaker. 

In his own language Beecher tells us how the 
teacher would stand him at one end of the room 
while he stood at the other and have him go over 
whispering exercises in order to bring the sounds 
on the lips, and practise on the vowels in the three 
registers, so as to increase the compass and flexi- 
bility of the voice. Yes, Beecher possessed a 
glorious voice, but he gained it only after the most 
laborious practice. 

Let me quote his own words : " The cultivated 
voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high, inter- 
mediate or low, unconsciously to him who uses it, 
and men listen, unaware that they have been be- 
witched out of their weariness by the charms of a 
voice not artificial, but made by assiduous train- 
ing to be his second nature." 

The eloquent advocate, John P. Curran, when 
[16] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

at school, was called " Stuttering Jack," on ac- 
count of an impediment in his speech, and yet he 
not only overcame this great vocal obstacle, but 
became a free and brilliant speaker. Lord Mans- 
field devoted years of his life to the study of elo- 
quence. The younger Pitt was carefully trained 
in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero by his 
renowned father. Webster, Everett, and Sumner 
all labored to perfect themselves in the art of 
speech. Henry Ward Beecher and Roscoe Conk- 
ling studied elocution from their youth to the end 
of their days. Clergymen, like the Rev. Dr. 
Ernest M. Stires and the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. 
Slicer, availed themselves of the aid of systematic 
training, and are excellent examples of what can 
be accomplished by those who seek to become elo- 
quent speakers, but few ministers of churches de- 
vote any attention to the art of vocal expression, 
and most of the public men of our day ally them- 
selves with the trusts or private interests and by 
forming a cabal control the government of our 
land and follow the behests of special individuals 
and corporations instead of coming out boldly and 
speaking for the rights of the masses. 

The public speaker should be informed con- 
cerning all sides of the question upon which he 
speaks. He should keep in mind his facts alone, 
[17] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

and not bother about the words that are to clothe 
them, but his vocabulary must be enriched by 
previous study and practice to such an extent that 
he will have always at command the words neces- 
sary to convey his ideas; he must possess perfect 
mastery over a voice made pliable, melodious, 
strong, and expressive by assiduous practice, and 
a knowledge of the art of expression, thus allow- 
ing the concentration of thought entirely on the 
facts. Keep the facts in mind and there will be 
words enough spontaneously flow to express them, 
provided the speaker has had the training neces- 
sary to fit him for his task. He must inform him- 
self on all that can be said against the stand he 
takes on the question, as well as all that can be 
said in its favor. This applies to oratory no mat- 
ter what type of man it speaks through. Webster 
arguing in defence of the Constitution, Clay in 
favor of protecting American seamen and shipping 
from the encroachments of England, Beecher in 
behalf of free labor, all exemplify this fact. Even 
the unschooled murderer on the scafi^old, imploring 
his listeners to avoid the causes that brought him 
to his ignoble end, emphasizes and illustrates this 
rule. 

I care not how the orator gains his knowledge, 
but knowledge he must have. He may gain it, as 
[18]. 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

did men like Webster, Everett, and Sumner, by a 
thorough collegiate education, or he may gain it, 
as did Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, and Abraham 
Lincoln, by the study of men and nature, or he 
may gain it even as the criminal who was un- 
learned in all things except those imparted to him 
by bitter experience. The criminal knew full well 
that evil surroundings, evil associations, and evil 
acts brought him to his ignominious end, and this 
knowledge made him more competent to speak on 
the subject of eternity, warning his hearers against 
a life that could only mean its early cutting off 
and the possible loss of a soul through its per- 
versity in following sin, than the educated church- 
man schooled in the study of printed books, but 
ignorant of the great book of experience. Such 
a case as I refer to occurred in one of our Southern 
States, and was told to me by one of her able 
lawyers, who was a witness of the scene. 

A human being was about to be suspended from 
a gibbet. The gallows was erected in the open 
before the jail, the criminal stood upon the plat- 
form, while over him dangled the noose that was 
soon to strangle out his life. Around the scaffold 
was a company of the National Guard, and beyond 
the soldiers were massed hundreds who had come 
to see the poor wretch die. He was an unlettered, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

unschooled, uncared-for negro who had committed 
murder in endeavoring to escape from a farmer, 
whose house he had robbed. How he escaped 
lynching my friend did not inform me, but he had 
been tried, found guilty, and now stood to dehver 
up his life at the mandate of the law. He looked 
out upon that sea of faces with eyes that were 
kindled by an unusual light, and he seemed to be 
gazing into the unknown future, permitted by the 
nearness of its approach to see beyond the portals 
of the new existence. Inwrapped, as he was, with 
awful dread of the leap into eternity, his heart 
bursting with strange emotion, his eyes glowing 
with a weird light, he looked out upon the faces 
before him, and implored his listeners to profit by 
his terrible example — to turn from animal wicked- 
ness, and embrace spiritual uprightness. His lan- 
guage was ungrammatical, his diction was far 
from scholarly, but sincerity was in every tone, 
word, and look, and a deep impression was made 
upon the gathered throng. This was such a burst 
of eloquence as described by Webster : " It comes, 
if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain 
from the earth or the bursting forth of volcanic 
fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. 
.... It is action, noble, sublime, godlike ac- 
tion." This poor negro's life was not unproduc- 
[20] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tive of good, even though he broke what is 
considered by man the greatest of the command- 
ments, for he was at last used as the humble in- 
strument of God to carry one of His lessons to 
the erring children of men. 

It must not be supposed that I use this illustra- 
tion in order to belittle the need of preparation 
— vocal, physical, and mental — of the orator for 
his work, for, on the contrary, the points I wish 
to emphasize are that nothing but knowledge can 
furnish the material out of which the structure of 
oratory is erected, and that truth, absolute sin- 
cerity, is the foundation stone upon which the 
oration must rest. A union of truth and knowl- 
edge is necessary to the production of oratory. 
The orator should know his subject, know his art, 
know himself, and believe in all three. 

" Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." 

Speaking is an art. The production and man- 
agement of speech should not be left to chance, 
or entirely to nature, but should be cultivated 
and perfected by means of the adoption of tried 
principles, for only in this manner can its best 
effects be produced. 

No doubt many will inwardly smile at this, and 
think : " Gracious ! is he going to turn speaking 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

into an art, will he attempt to make public speak- 
ing more common than it is ? " Some, perhaps, 
will recall the words of Carlyle : " Silence is the 
eternal duty of man," and also his remark that 
" England and America are going to nothing but 
wind and tongue." But before accepting the 
dictum of the learned Doctor, we must bear in 
mind that he was not an impartial critic, that he 
was a pessimist of pessimists, a lover of truth, as 
he saw it, but inclined to think that the truth an- 
other saw was either a falsehood or a dream. He 
was, however, always consistent, and ended his 
life's work as he began it — by pounding his ideas 
and views into the heads (if not the hearts) of 
his listeners. This I say with all due respect, be- 
cause I admire the great Scotchman for his satir- 
ical humor, his steadfastness of purpose, and his 
genius. 

Horace states that one Novius, an office-holder 
at Bome, — a tribune, — was elevated to the sta- 
tion he held chiefly by the force of his lungs. 
" Has he not a voice," demanded his supporters, 
" loud enough to drown the noise of two hundred 
wagons and three funerals meeting in the forum? 
It is this that pleases us, and we have therefore 
made him tribune." ^ Possibly Dr. Carlyle took 

* ' ' Oratory and Orators, '•' by William Matthews. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

this specimen as his idea of speech, and if so, he 
was justified in crying out against the extension 
of such pubHc speaking. But should we not be 
permitted to see the question from its other side — 
from the side men hke Gladstone, Ruskin, Lincoln, 
Clay, Beecher, and their kind saw it? For these 
men agreed with Cicero in believing that it is most 
glorious to excel men in that in which men excel 
all other animals. Shakespeare says: " It is not 
enough to speak, but to speak true." He does 
not advise us to keep silent and thus lose the power 
of speech, for, in the words of Cardinal Newman, 
" He who does not use a gift, loses it ; the man 
who does not use his voice, loses power over it," 
but he tells us to speak true, true not only in the 
statement but in the manner. 

Delivery possesses many forms befitting the dif- 
ferent occasions and many matters on which public 
speakers are called upon to speak, and does not 
consist of mere loudness of voice and exaggerated 
use of gesture. The delivery characteristic of the 
political speaker would not be appropriate to the 
clergyman, the fitting delivery of the clergyman 
would not suit the lawyer, but each of the many 
forms of delivery must be given its proper attri- 
butes. Daniel Webster splendidly sums up the 
matter in three phrases : " It must exist in the 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

man, in the subject, and in the occasion." Let 
us say by way of paraphrase : The dehvery must 
befit the man, the subject, and the occasion. 

Oratory may be divided into five distinct classes. 
First. — Philosophic oratory, whose province it is 
to instruct. Second. — Demonstrative oratory, to 
arouse feehng. Third. — Forensic oratory, ar- 
^mentative in nature. Fourth. — Deliberative 
oratory, pertaining to assembhes of a legislative 
character. Fifth. — Social oratory, to entertain or 
amuse. 

The first class. Philosophic, and the third class. 
Forensic, appeal only to the intellect. They are 
the classes where one mentality speaks to the many, 
aiming to persuade and move by reason, and not 
by any kind of passion. These classes stand on 
the foundation of justice, and aim to convince 
by demonstrating that they are right, and for that 
reason alone demand to. prevail. 

The second class. Demonstrative, appeals to the 
heart, and not to the mind. It aims to move by 
making its appeal to the passions, and to sway 
an audience instantly, without any consideration 
as to the righteousness of the appeal that moves 
the listener. Its sole aim is to move, and it is 
not always particular as to the means it uses, so 
long as the means accomplish the purpose for 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

which they are employed. It is sometimes used in 
furthering a good cause, but often abused in ad- 
vancing a bad one. 

The fourth class, Deliberative, possesses the at- 
tributes of the second class, the Demonstrative, 
and the third class, the Forensic, and aims to per- 
suade by argument, and to move by passion. 

The fifth class, Social, appeals only to the emo- 
tions, and its sole object is to entertain and amuse. 

Each of these five forms of oratory may em- 
brace the four divisions of English composition — 
Exposition, Argumentation, Description and Nar- 
ration — but they must be delivered in a manner 
suitable to the class in which they are used. 

The Philosophic discourse may be expositive, 
argumentative, descriptive and narrative in the 
one address, but never must it be allowed to wan- 
der from making its appeal to the reason. Such 
a discourse must always rest on the righteousness 
of its cause, and justice must be the one motive 
that governs it. It may instruct, argue, describe, 
narrate, and appeal, but only through the intel- 
lect. All the other classes of oratory — Demon- 
strative, Forensic, Deliberative, and Social — may 
do the like things, but only in a manner befitting 
each particular class. Even in Demonstrative 
oratory it is necessary to explain, argue, describe, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

and narrate, as well as to arouse, but it is always 
done with the idea of swaying the listeners 
through the passions, and not by the force of 
reason. 

All speeches, no matter what their class, must 
possess an opening, a body, and a conclusion, but 
each class should be governed by the particular 
quality or qualities that go to make it up. Thus, 
reason governs the Philosophic and Forensic ; pas- 
sion the Demonstrative; both reason and passion 
the Deliberative, and emotion the Social. All of 
them, however, in their own particular way, seek 
to convince, persuade, and move, by appealing to 
either the reason or the passion, and all use the 
four divisions of English composition without in 
any manner losing the distinctive style of com- 
position and delivery befitting the individual class 
to which the speech belongs. 



[26] 



EXAMPLES OF THE FIVE 
CLASSES OF ORATORY 

FIRST CLASS — THE PHILOSOPHIC 
COMMUNION WITH GOD 

CARDINAL NEWMAN 

John Henry Newman, Roman Catholic cardinal, distin- 
guished English theologian, and one of the greatest preachers 
of his day, was born in London, England, February 31, 1801, 
and died in Edgbaston, near Birmingham, August 11, 1890. 
His literary productions are considered models of English 
style. 

" One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I 
will require: even that I may dwell in the house of 
the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair 
beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple," — Psalm 

xxvii, 4. 

WHAT the Psalmist desired, we Christians en- 
j oy to the full, — the liberty of holding com- 
munion with Grod in His temple all through our life. 
Under the law the presence of God was but in one 
place; and therefore could be approached and en- 
joyed only at set times. For far the greater part 
of their lives the chosen people were in one sense 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

" cast out of the sight of His eyes " ; and the 
periodical return to it which they were allowed 
was a privilege highly coveted and earnestly ex- 
pected. Much more precious was the privilege of 
continually dwelling in His sight which is spoken 
of in the text. " One thing," says the Psalmist, 
" have I desired of the Lord .... that I may 
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my 
life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to 
visit His temple." He desired to have continually 
that communion with God in prayer, praise, and 
meditation, to which His presence admits the soul; 
and this, I say, is the portion of Christians. 
Faith opens upon us Christians the temple of God 
wherever we are; for that temple is a spiritual 
one, and so is everywhere present. " We have 
access," says the apostle, — that is, we have ad- 
mission or introduction, " by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God." And hence, he says elsewhere, " Rejoice 
in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." 
" Re j oice evermore, pray without ceasing ; in 
everything give thanks." And St. James, " Is 
any afflicted? let him pray: is any merry? let him 
sing psalms." Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, con- 
templation, are the peculiar privilege and duty of 
a Christian, and that for their own sakes, from 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the exceeding comfort and satisfaction thej afford 
him, and without reference to any definite results to 
which prayer attends, without reference to the an- 
swers which are promised to it, from a general sense 
of the blessedness of being under the shadow of 
God's throne. 

I propose, then, in what follows to make some 
remarks on communion with God, or prayer in a 
large sense of the word; not as regards its ex- 
ternal consequences, but as it may be considered 
to affect our own minds and hearts. 

What, then, is prayer? It is (if it may be 
said reverently) conversing with God. We con- 
verse with our fellow men, and then we use fa- 
miliar language, because they are our fellows. 
We converse with God, and then we use the low- 
liest, awfullest, calmest, concisest language we can, 
because he is God. Prayer, then, is divine con- 
verse, differing from human as God differs from 
man. Thus St. Paul says, " Our conversation is 
in heaven," — not indeed thereby meaning converse 
of words only, but intercourse and manner of 
living generally; yet still in an especial way con- 
verse of words or prayer, because language is the 
special means of all intercourse. Our intercourse 
with our fellow men goes on, not by sight but 
by sound, not by eyes, but by ears. Hearing is 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the social sense and language is the social bond. 
In like manner, as the Christian's conversation is 
in heaven, as it is his duty, with Enoch and other 
saints, to walk with God, so his voice is in heaven, 
his heart " inditing of a good matter," of prayers 
and praises. Prayers and praises are the mode of 
his intercourse with the next world, as the con- 
verse of business or recreation is the mode in which 
this world is carried on in all its separate courses. 
He who does not pray, does not claim his citizen- 
ship with heaven, but lives, though an heir of the 
kingdom, as if he were a child of earth. 

Now, it is not surprising if that duty or privi- 
lege, which is the characteristic token of our 
heavenly inheritance, should also have an especial 
influence upon our fitness for claiming it. He 
who does not use a gift, loses it ; the man who does 
not use his voice or hmbs, loses power over them, 
and becomes disquahfied for the state of life to 
which he is called. In like manner, he who 
neglects to pray not only suspends the enjoyment, 
but is in a way to lose the possession of his divine 
citizenship. We are members of another world; 
we have been severed from the companionship of 
devils and brought Into that invisible kingdom of 
Christ which faith alone discerns, — that mysteri- 
ous presence of God which encompasses us, which 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

is in us, and around us, which is in our heart, 
which enfolds us as though with a robe of hght, 
hiding our scarred and discolored souls from the 
sight of divine purity, and making them shining 
as the angels ; and which flows in upon us too by 
means of all forms of beauty and grace which this 
visible world contains, in a starry host or (if I 
may so say) a milky way of divine companions, 
the inhabitants of Mount Zion, where we dwell. 
Faith, I say, alone apprehends all this; but yet 
there is something which is not left to faith, — our 
own tastes, likings, motives, and habits. Of these 
we are conscious in our degree, and we can make 
ourselves more and more conscious; and as con- 
sciousness tells us what they are, reason tells us 
whether they are such as become, as correspond 
with, that heavenly world into which we have been 
translated. 

SECOND CLASS — THE DEMONSTRATIVE 
ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

VICTOR HUGO 

Victor Marie Hugo, a great French poet, dramatist, 
novelist, man of letters, and senator, was born in Besan9on, 
France, February 26, 1802, and died at Paris, May 22, 1885. 
This extract is taken from a speech delivered by Victor 
Hugo on June 11, 1851, in defence of his son, Charles Hugo, 
who was indicted before the Court of Assizes under the 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

charge of having failed in respect due the law, by publish- 
ing in his paper a full and vivid account of a recent execu- 
tion. 

GENTLEMEN of the jury, this right to criti- 
cise the law, to criticise it even with severity, 
particularly penal law, that can so easily take on 
the impress of barbarism, this right of criticism 
that stands side by side with the duty of ameliora- 
tion, as a torch to guide a workman, this right of 
author not less sacred than the right of legislator, 
this imperative right, this inalienable right, you 
will recognize in your verdict, — you will acquit 
the accused. But the counsel for the prosecution, 
and this is his second argument, asserts that the 
criticism of the " Evenement " went too far, was 
too scathing. Ah, gentlemen of the jury, let us 
bring near the event which was the cause of the 
pretended crime with which one has had the hardi- 
hood to charge the editor of the " Evenement," 
let us regard it at short range. Here is a man, 
condemned, wretched, who is dragged on a certain 
morning into one of our squares — there he finds 
a scaffold. He rebels, he pleads, he will not die; 
he is still young, hardly twenty-nine years old — 
great heavens ! I know what you will say — " He 
is an assassin ! " but listen 1 Two executioners 
seize him; his hands are bound, his feet fettered, 

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LAWRENCE READER' AND SPEAKER 

still he pushes them back. A horrible struggle 
ensues. He twists his feet in the ladder, and uses 
the scaffold against the scaffold. The struggle 
is prolonged, horror takes possession of the crowd. 
The executioners, the sweat of shame on their 
brows, pale, breathless, terrified, desperate with I 
know not what terrible despair — borne down by 
the weight of public reprobation that must confine 
itself to condemnation of the death penalty, but 
that would do wrong in harming its passive in- 
strument — the headsman — the executioners make 
savage efforts. Force must remain with the law, 
that is the maxim! The man clings to the scaf- 
fold and demands mercy ; his clothing is torn away, 
his bare shoulders are bloody, he resists all the 
while. At last, after three-quarters of an hour of 
this awful contest, of this spectacle without a 
name, of this agony, agony for every one, — do 
you realize it ? — agony for those present as well 
as for the condemned; after this age of anguish, 
gentlemen of the jury, the poor wretch is carried 
back to prison. The people breathe again; the 
people who have the humane feelings of earlier 
times, and who are merciful, knowing themselves 
to be sovereign — the people believe him to be 
saved. Not at all. The guillotine is vanquished, 
but still rears itself; it remains standing through- 
3 [33] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

out the day in the midst of a population filled with 
consternation. At night the executioners, rein- 
forced in number, bind the man in such fashion 
that he is no longer anything save an inert mass, 
and again transport him to the square, weeping, 
screaming, haggard, bleeding, begging for life, 
calhng upon God, calling upon his father and his 
mother, because in the face of death this man is 
again a child. He is hoisted upon the scaffold 
— and his head falls ! And then a murmur of 
abhorrence is heard from the crowd; never has 
legal murder appeared more presumptuous or more 
accursed; every one feels, so to speak, jointly re- 
sponsible for the tragic deed just done; everyone 
feels in his inmost soul as if he had seen in the 
very midst of France, in broad day, civilization 
insulted by barbarism! Then it is that a cry 
breaks forth from the breast of a young man, from 
his heart, from his soul, from the very depths of 
his being, a cry of pity, a cry of anguish, a cry 
of horror; and for this cry you will punish him! 
And, in presence of these frightful facts that I 
have brought under your notice, you will say to 
the guillotine, " Thou art right ! " and will say to 
compassion, to holy compassion, " Thou art 
wrong ! " 

Monsieur the Attorney-General, I tell you with- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

out bitterness that you are not defending a right- 
eous cause. It is in vain ! You are engaged in 
an unequal contest with the spirit of civiHzation, 
with milder manners, with progress. You have 
against you the resistance of the inmost heart of 
man; you have against you all the principles in 
the light of which for sixty years France has 
walked and also caused the world to walk — the 
inviolability of human life, the brotherhood of 
the ignorant classes, and the doctrine of ameliora- 
tion in place of the doctrine of retaliation. 

You have against you all that illuminates reason, 
all that vibrates in the soul, philosophy as well 
as religion; on the one side Voltaire, on the other 
Jesus Christ. Your labor is in vain, this fright- 
ful service that the scaffold has the pretension to 
render society, society abhors and rejects. Your 
labor is in vain, the upholders of capital punish- 
ment labor in vain, and you see we do not con- 
found them with society, it is useless for them, 
they will never take away the guilt of the old law 
of retahation. They will never wash away those 
hideous words upon which for so many centuries 
has trickled down the blood from heads severed by 
the executioner's knife. 

Gentlemen, I have done ! 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



THIRD CLASS — FORENSIC 

NO RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 
TO HOLD SUBJECT STATES 

GEORGE F. HOAR 

George Frisbie Hoar was born at Concord, Mass., August 
29, 1826, and died at Worcester, Mass., September 30, 1904. 
He studied in early youth at Concord Academy; was gradu- 
ated at Harvard College in 1846; studied law and was 
graduated at the Dane Law School in I860; was elected rep- 
resentative to the Forty-first, Forty-second, Forty-third, and 
Forty-fourth Congresses, after having served as a member 
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1852 and 
of the State Senate in 1857. He received the degree of 
Doctor of Laws from William and Mary, Amherst, Yale, and 
Harvard Colleges, and was a member of many historical so- 
cieties. He was a United States Senator from Massachu- 
setts from March 5, 1877, to the day of his death. Senator 
Hoar was at his best in argumentative oratory, as his reason- 
ing was profound, his logic clear, and his style dignified and 
convincing. He was considered one of the best forensic ora- 
tors of his day. The following is an extract from a speech 
delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 17, 1900. 

THE constitutional question is: Has Congress 
the power, under our Constitution, to hold in 
subjection unwilling vassal States.? 

The question of international law is: Can any 
nation rightfully convey to another, sovereignty 
over an unwilling people who have thrown off its 
dominion, asserted their independence, established 
a government of their own; over whom it has at 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the time no practical control, from whose territory 
it has been disseized, and which it is beyond its 
power to deliver? 

The question of justice and righteousness is: 
Have we the right to crush and hold under our 
feet an unwilling and subject people whom we had 
treated as allies, whose independence we are bound 
in good faith to respect, who had established their 
own free government, and who had trusted us ? 

The question of public expediency is : Is it for 
our advantage to promote our trade at the cannon's 
mouth and at the point of the bayonet? 

All these questions can be put in a way of prac- 
tical illustration by inquiring whether we ought to 
do what we have done, are doing, and mean to do 
in the case of Cuba; or what we have done, are 
doing, and some of you mean to do in the case of 
the Philippine Islands. 

It does not seem to me to be worth while to state 
again at length the constitutional argument which 
I have addressed to the Senate heretofore. It has 
been encountered with eloquence, with clearness, 
and beauty of statement, and, I have no doubt, with 
absolute sincerity by Senators who have spoken on 
the other side. But the issue between them and 
me can be summed up in a sentence or two, and if, 
so stated, it cannot be made clear to any man's 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

apprehension, I despair of making it clear by any 
elaboration or amplification. 

I admit that the United States may acquire and 
hold property, and may make rules and regula- 
tions for its disposition. 

I admit that, like other property, the United 
States may acquire and hold land. It may acquire 
it by purchase. It may acquire it by treaty. It 
may acquire it by conquest. And it may make 
rules and regulations for its disposition and gov- 
ernment, however it be acquired. 

When there are inhabitants upon the land so ac- 
quired it may make laws for their government. 
But the question between me and the gentlemen on 
the other side is this: Is this acquisition of terri- 
tory, of land or other property, whether gained 
by purchase, conquest, or treaty, a constitutional 
end or only a means to a constitutional end? May 
you acquire, hold, and govern territory, or other 
property, as an end for which our Constitution 
was framed, or is it only a means towards some 
other and further end.? May you acquire, hold, 
and govern property by conquest, treaty, or pur- 
chase for the sole ob j ect of so holding and govern- 
ing it, without the consideration of any further 
constitutional purpose ; or must you hold it for a 
constitutional purpose only, such as the making 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

of new States, the national defence and security, 
the establishment of a seat of government, or the 
construction of forts, harbors, and like works, 
which, of course, are themselves for the national 
defence and security? 

I hold that this acquisition, holding, and govern- 
ing can only be a means for a constitutional end 
— the creation of new States or some other of the 
constitutional purposes to which I have adverted. 
And I maintain that you can no more hold and 
govern territory than you can hold and manage 
cannon or fleets for any other than a constitutional 
end; and I maintain that the holding in subjection 
an alien people, governing them against their will 
for any fancied advantage to them, is not only not 
an end provided for by the Constitution, but is an 
end prohibited therein. 

Now, with due respect to the gentlemen who 
have discussed this matter, I do not find that they 
have answered this proposition or undertaken to 
answer it. I do not find that they have under- 
stood it. You have, in my judgment, under your 
admitted power to acquire, own, and govern terri- 
tory, which is just like your admitted power to 
govern, own, and control ships or guns, no more 
right under the Constitution to hold that territory 
for the sake of keeping in subjection an alien peo- 
[39] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

pie than you have a right to acquire, hold, and 
manage cannon or fleets or to raise armies for 
the sake of keeping in subjection and under your 
control an alien people. All these things are 
means : and means to constitutional and not to 
unconstitutional ends. 

The Constitution of the United States sets forth 
certain specific objects and confers certain specific 
powers upon the Government it creates. All pow- 
ers necessary or reasonably convenient to accom- 
plishing these specific objects and exercising these 
specific powers are granted by implication. In 
my judgment the Constitution should be liberally 
construed in determining the extent of such powers. 
In that I agree with Webster and Hamilton and 
Lincoln and Washington and Marshall, and not 
with Calhoun or the Democrats of the time of the 
War of the Rebellion and since. But the most lib- 
eral statesman or jurist never went further than 
the rule I have stated in claiming constitutional 
powers for our Government. The Constitution 
says that Congress may make rules and regulations 
for the government of the territory and other 
property of the United States. That implies that 
we may acquire and regulate territory as we may 
acquire and use other property, such as our ships 
of war, our cannon or forts or arsenals. But 
[40] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

territory, like other property, can only be acquired 
for constitutional purposes, and cannot be acquired 
and governed for unconstitutional purposes. 
Now, one constitutional purpose is to admit new 
States to the Union. That is on^ of the objects 
for which the Constitution was framed. So we 
may acquire and hold and govern territory with 
that object in view. But governing subject peo- 
ples, and holding them for that purpose, is not 
a constitutional end. On the contrary, it is an 
end which the generation which framed the Con- 
stitution and the Declaration of Independence de- 
clared was unrighteous and abhorrent. So, in my 
opinion, we have no constitutional power to acquire 
territory for the purpose of holding it in subju- 
gation, in a state of vassalage or serfdom, against 
the will of its people. 

FOURTH CLASS — LEGISLATIVE 
CUBA MUST BE FREE 

JOHN M. THURSTON 

John Mellen Thurston was born at Montpelier, Vermont, 
August 21, 1847. His ancestors were Puritans, their set- 
tlement in this country dating back to 1636. His grand- 
father Mellen and great-grandfather Thurston were both 
soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He journeyed with his 
parents to the West in 1854, making his home in Madison, 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Wisconsin. By intelligence and hard work he rose from 
farm laborer to lawyer, having been admitted to the bar 
May 21, 1869, and in October of the same year located in 
Omaha, Nebraska, where he began the practice of his pro- 
fession. He rose by successive steps from City Councillor 
of Omaha in 187^, to member of the Nebraska legislature in 
1875; temporary chairman of the Republican National 
Convention in 1888; president of the Republican League of 
the United States, 1889 to 1891; United States Senator 
from Nebraska 1895 to 1901. As an advocate, ex-Senator 
Thurston is eloquent and convincing, and as a political 
speaker he is one of the best that the Republican party 
has possessed. The following extract is from a speech de- 
livered in the United States Senate, March 24, 1898. 

MR. President, there are those who say that the 
aJfFairs of Cuba are not the affairs of the 
United States, who insist that we can stand idly by 
and see that island devastated and depopulated, its 
business interests destroyed, its commercial inter- 
course with us cut off, its people starved, degraded, 
and enslaved. It may be the naked legal right of 
the United States to stand thus idly by. 

I have the legal right to pass along the street 
and see a helpless dog stamped into the earth under 
the heels of a rufSan. I can pass by and say that 
is not my dog. I can sit in my comfortable parlor 
with my loved ones gathered about me, and through 
my plate glass window see a fiend outraging a 
helpless woman nearby, and I can legally say this 
is no affair of mine — it is not happening on my 
premises ; and I can turn away and take my little 

[42] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

ones in my arms, and, with the memory of their 
sainted mother in my heart, look up to the motto 
on the wall and read, " God bless our home." 

But if I do, I am a coward and a cur unfit to 
live, and, God knows, unfit to die. And yet I can- 
not protect the dog nor save the woman without 
the exercise of force. 

We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the 
exercise of force, and force means war ; war means 
blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of 
Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, 
" Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not 
peace on earth at the expense of liberty and 
humanity. Not good will toward men who de- 
spoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their 
fellow men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. 
I believe in the doctrine of peace ; but, Mr. Presi- 
dent, men must have liberty before there can come 
abiding peace. 

Intervention means force. Force means war. 
War means blood. But it will be God's force. 
When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever 
been won except by force? What barricade of 
wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been 
carried except by force? 

Force compelled the signature of unwilling 
royalty to the great Magna Charta ; force put life 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

into the Declaration of Independence and made 
effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force 
beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of 
the Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour 
for centuries of kingly crime ; force waved the flag 
of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the 
snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; 
force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed the 
flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the 
clouds on Lookout heights; force marched with 
Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the val- 
ley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at 
Appomattox ; force saved the Union, kept the stars 
in the flag, made " niggers " men. The time for 
God's force has come again. Let the impassioned 
lips of American patriots once more take up the 
song : 

" In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across 

the sea^ 
With a glory in his bosom that transfigured you and 

me; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men 

free, 
For God is marching on.** 

Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, 
others may plead for further diplomatic negotia- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tion, which means delay, but for me, I am ready to 
act now, and for my action I am ready to answer 
to my conscience, my country, and my God. 

FIFTH CLASS — SOCIAL 
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 

OLIVER WENDELIi HOLMES 

Oliver "Wendell Holmes, an eminent writer in prose and 
verse, was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809, and 
died at Boston, Mass., October 7, 1894. This extract is 
from a speech delivered by Mr. Holmes at the dinner of 
the Massachusetts Medical Society, Boston, May, 1856. 

IT is the peculiar privilege of occasions like the 
present to indulge in such reasonable measure 
of self-congratulation as the feeling of the hour 
may inspire. The very theory of the banquet is 
that it crowns the temples with roses and warms 
the heart with wine, so that the lips may speak 
more freely and the ears may listen more lovingly, 
and our better natures brought into close com- 
munion for an hour may carry away the fragrance 
of friendship mingled with the odor of the blossoms 
that breathed sweet through the festal circle. 

We have suppressed the classical accompani- 
ments of good-fellowship, but we claim all its 
license. Nor are we alone in asserting a title to 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

this indulgence. Of all the multitudinous re- 
ligious associations that are meeting around us, 
I have jet to learn that there is one which does 
not assert or assume its own peculiar soundness in 
the faith. I have seen a black swan and a white 
crow in the same collection, but I never heard of 
a political assembly where all its own crows were 
not white, and all the swans of all the other politi- 
cal aviaries were not blacker than midnight murder 
or noonday ruffianism. 

The few words I have to speak are uttered more 
freely because my relations with the medical pro- 
fession are incidental rather than immediate and 
intimate. My pleasant task is all performed in 
the porch of the great temple where you serve daily. 
I need not blush then to speak the praises of the 
divine art, even if you should blush to hear them. 

I hear it said from time to time that the physi- 
cian is losing his hold on the public mind. I be- 
lieve this remark belongs to a class of sayings that 
repeat themselves over and over, like the Japanese 
machine-made prayers which our travellers tell us 
of, and with about as much thought in them. 
There are country people that are always saying 
there is a great want of rain — they would have 
said so in Noah's flood — for the first fortnight, 
at least; there are city folks for whom business 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

is always dull and money is always tight ; there are 
politicians that always think the country is going 
to ruin, and there are people enough that will 
never believe there are any " good old-fashioned 
snow storms " nowadays, until they have passed a 
night in the cars between a couple of those degener- 
ate snow banks they despise so heartily. There are 
many things of this sort which are said daily, 
which always have been said, and always will be 
said, with more or less of truth, but without any 
such portentous novelty as need frighten us from 
our propriety. 

We need not go beyond our own limits, Mr. 
President, to find ample reason for proclaiming 
boldly that the medical profession was never more 
truly honored or more liberally rewarded than at 
this very time and in this very place. There never 
lived in this community a practitioner held in more 
love and veneration by all his professional brethren 
and by the multitude who have profited by his 
kind and wise counsel than he who, having soothed 
the last hours of his long cherished friend and as- 
sociate, still walks among us bearing his burden 
of years so lightly that he hardly leans upon the 
staffs he holds ; himself a staff upon which so many 
have leaned through fifty faithful years of patient 
service. Talk about the success of the unworthy 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

pretender as compared with that of the true 
physician — why, what man could ever have built 
up such a fame among us, if he had not laid as 
its cornerstone, truth, fidelity, honor, humanity — 
all cemented with the courtesy that binds these 
virtues together in one life-long inseparable union. 
Do you complain of the failing revenues of the 
profession? I question whether from the time 
when Boylston took his pay in guineas, through 
the days when John Warren the elder counted his 
gains in continental currency, looking well in the 
ledger and telling poorly at the butcher's and the 
baker's, there was ever a prettier pile made daily 
than is built up by one of our living brethren who 
fought his way up stream until the tide turned and 
wafted him into reputation, which makes his labors 
too much for one man and something over two 
horses. The success of one such diligent and faith- 
ful practitioner is the truest rebuke to charlatan- 
ism. It is a Waterloo triumph, a Perry's victory, 
not over the squadrons of Lake Erie, but the 
piratical craft of Quack-ery. 



[48] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR 

CHARLES DICKENS 

Charles Dickens, the marvellous novelist of humble life, 
was born in Portsmouth, England, February 7, 1812, and 
died in London, England, June 9, 1870. He commenced his 
literary career, with " Sketches by Boz," when he was 
twenty-one years old, and it extended, with wonderful suc- 
cess, over a period of thirty-seven years. His childhood 
was passed in poverty and hardship, he had little schooling, 
and was what is styled a self-educated man. Not only was 
he a great writer, but he was gifted with talent for acting, 
and amassed large sums by reading from his works in Eng- 
land and America. He was a man of fine appearance, pos- 
sessed a beautifully modulated voice, and much dramatic 
power. 

r ■ 1 HERE was once a child, and he strolled about 
■■- a good deal, and thought of a number of 
things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and 
his constant companion. These two used to 
wonder all day long. They wondered at the 
beauty of the flowers ; they wondered at the height 
and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the 
depth of the bright water; they wondered at the 
goodness and the power of God who made the 
lovely world. 

They used to say to one another, sometimes: 
Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, 
would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be 
4 [49] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, 
said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, 
and the little playful streams that gambol down 
the hillsides are the children of the water ; and the 
smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek 
in the sky all night, must surely be the children of 
the stars ; and they would all be grieved to see their 
playmates, the children of men, no more. 

There was one clear shining star that used to 
come out in the sky before the rest, near the church 
spire, above the graves. It was larger and more 
beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and 
every night they watched for it, standing hand in 
hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, 
" I see the star 1 " And often they cried out both 
together, knowing so well when it would rise, and 
where. So they grew to be such friends with it, 
that, before lying down in their beds, they always 
looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and 
when they were turning round to sleep, they used 
to say, " God bless the star ! " 

But while she was still very young, oh very, very 
young, the sister drooped, and came to be so very 
weak that she could no longer stand in the window 
at night; and then the child looked sadly out by 
himself, and when he saw the star, turned round 
and said to the patient pale face on the bed, " I 
[50] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

see the star 1 " and then a smile would come upon 
the face, and a little weak voice used to say, " God 
bless my brother and the star ! " 

And so the time came, all too soon, when the 
child looked out alone, and when there was no face 
on the bed ; and when there was a little grave among 
the graves, not there before; and when the star 
made long rays down towards him, as he saw it 
through his tears. 

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed 
to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, 
that when the child went to his solitary bed, he 
dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying 
where he was, he saw a train of people taken up 
that sparkling road by angels. And the star, 
opening, showed him a great world of light, where 
many more such angels waited to receive them. 

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their 
beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up 
into the star; and some came out from the long 
rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's 
necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away 
with them down avenues of light, and were so 
happy in their company, that lying in his bed he 
wept for joy. 

But there were many angels who did not go with 
them, and among them one he knew. The patient 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified 
and radiant, but his heart found out his sister 
among all the host. 

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of 
the star, and said to the leader among those who 
had brought the people thither: 

" Is my brother come? " 

And he said " No." 

She was turning hopefully away, when the child 
stretched out his arms, and cried, " O, sister, I am 
here ! Take me ! " and then she turned her beam- 
ing eyes upon him, and it was night ; and the star 
was shining in the room, making long rays down 
towards him as he saw it through his tears. 

From that hour forth, the child looked out upon 
the star as on the home he was to go to, when his 
time should come; and he thought that he did not 
belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, be- 
cause of his sister's angel gone before. 

There was a baby bom to be a brother to the 
child; and while he was so little that he never yet 
had spoken a word, he stretched his tiny form out 
on his bed, and died. 

Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of 
the company of angels, and the train of people, 
and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes 
all turned upon those people's faces. 
[52] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Said his sister's angel to the leader: 

" Is my brother come? " 

And he said, " Not that one, but another." 

As the child beheld his brother's angel in her 
arms, he cried, " O, sister, I am here ! Take me ! " 
And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star 
was shining. 

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his 
books when an old servant came to him and said: 

" Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing 
on her darling son ! " 

Again at night he saw the star, and all that 
former company. Said his sister's angel to the 
leader : 

" Is my brother come? " 

And he said, "Thy mother 1" 

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the 
star, because the mother was re-united to her two 
children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, 
" O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here ! Take 



me I 



I " 



And they answered him, " Not yet," and the star 
was shining. 

He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning 
gray, and he was sitting in his chair by his fire- 
side, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed 
with tears, when the star opened once again. 
[53] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Said his sister's angel to the leader : " Is my 
brother come? " 

And he said, " Nay, but his maiden daughter." 

And the man who had been the child saw his 
daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature 
among those three, and he said " My daughter's 
head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is around 
my mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby 
of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, 
God be praised ! " 

And the star was shining. 

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his 
once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were 
slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one 
night as he lay upon his bed, his children stand- 
ing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago : 

"I see the star!" 

They whispered one another, " He is dying." 

And he said, " I am. My age is falling from me 
like a garment, and I move towards the star as a 
child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that 
it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones 
who await me ! " 

And the star was shining : and it shines upon his 
grave. 

[54] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE GENIUS OF CHARLES DICKENS 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 

William Makepeace Thackeray, an eminent English novel- 
ist, was born in Calcutta, India, July 18, 1811, and died in 
London, England, December 24, 1863. This extract is from" 
a lecture entitled " Charity and Humor," which was de- 
livered at New York at the time of Mr. Thackeray's visit 
to America in 1852. 

AS for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied 
kindnesses which he has conferred upon us 
all ; upon our children ; upon people educated and 
uneducated; upon the myriads here and at home, 
who speak our common tongue ; have not you, have 
not I, all of us reason to be thankful to this kind 
friend, who soothed and charmed so many hours, 
brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many 
homes ; made such multitudes of children happy ; 
endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious 
thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, hearty en- 
joyments? There are creations of Mr. Dickens's 
which seem to me to rank as personal benefits ; 
figures so delightful, that one feels happier and 
better for knowing them, as one does for being 
brought into the society of very good men and 
women. The atmosphere in which these people 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

live is wholesome to breathe in ; you feel that to be 
allowed to speak to them is a personal kindness ; you 
come away better for your contact with them ; your 
hands seem cleaner from having the privilege of 
shaking theirs. Was there ever a better charity 
sermon preached in the world than Dickens's 
" Christmas Carol " ? I believe it occasioned im- 
mense hospitality throughout England; was the 
means of lighting up hundreds of kind fires at 
Christmas-time ; caused a wonderful outpouring of 
Christmas good feeling ; of Christmas punch brew- 
ing ; an awful slaughter of Christmas turkeys, and 
roasting and basting of Christmas beef. As for 
this man's love of children, that amiable organ at 
the back of his honest head must be perfectly 
monstrous. All children ought to love him. I 
know two that do, and read his books ten times 
for once that they peruse the dismal preachments 
of their father. I know one who, when she is 
happy, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she is 
unhappy, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she 
is in bed, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she 
is tired, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she has 
nothing to do, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; and 
when she has finished the book, reads " Nicholas 
Nickleby " over again. This candid young critic, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

at ten years of age, said, " I like Mr. Dickens's 
books much better than your books, Papa " ; and 
frequently expressed her desire that the latter 
author should write a book like one of Mr. Dickens's 
books. Who can? Every man must say his own 
thoughts in his own voice, in his own way ; lucky is 
he who has such a charming gift of nature as this, 
which brings all the children in the world trooping 
to him, and being fond of him. 

I remember, when that famous " Nicholas 
Nickleby " came out, seeing a letter from a peda- 
gogue in the north of England, which, dismal as 
it was, was immensely comical. " Mr. Dickens's 
ill-advised publication," wrote the poor school- 
master, " has passed like a whirlwind over the 
schools of the North." He was a proprietor of a 
cheap school ; Dotheboys Hall was a cheap school. 
There were many such establishments in the north- 
em counties. Parents were ashamed that never 
were ashamed before until the kind satirist laughed 
at them; relatives were frightened; scores of little 
scholars were taken away; poor schoolmasters had 
to shut their shops up ; every pedagogue was voted 
a Squeers, and many suffered, no doubt unjustly; 
but afterwards schoolboys' backs were not so much 
caned; schoolboys' meat was less tough and more 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

plentiful; and schoolboys' milk was not so sky- 
blue. What a kind light of benevolence it is that 
plays round Crummies and the Phenomenon, and 
all those poor theatre people in that charming 
book ! What a humor ! and what a good humor 1 

One might go on, though the task would be end- 
less and needless, chronicling the names of kind 
folks with whom this kind genius has made us 
familiar. Who does not love the Marchioness 
and Mr. Richard Swiveller? Who does not sym- 
pathize, not only with Oliver Twist, but his ad- 
mirable young friend the Artful Dodger? Who 
has not the inestimable advantage of possessing a 
Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not 
bless Sairey Gamp and wonder at Mrs. Harris? 
Who does not venerate the chief of that illustrious 
family who, being stricken by misfortune, wisely 
and greatly turned his attention to " coals," the 
accomplished, the Epicurean, the dirty, the de- 
lightful Micawber? 

I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand 
and a thousand times, I delight and wonder at his 
genius ; I recognize in it — I speak with awe and 
reverence — a commission from that Divine Benef- 
icence whose blessed task we know it will one day 
be to wipe every tear from every eye. Thankfully 
I take my share of the feast of love and kindness 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

which this gentle, and generous, and charitable 
soul has contributed to the happiness of the world. 
I take and enjoy my share, and say a Benediction 
for the meal. 

DIGGING FOR THE THOUGHT 

JOHN RUSKIN 

John Ruskin, a distinguished English art critic and prose 
writer, was born in London, February 8, 1819, and died near 
Coniston, Lancashire, January . 20, 1900. 

WHEN you come to a good book, you must 
ask yourself, " Am I inclined to work as an 
Australian miner would.? Are my pickaxes and 
shovels in good order, and am I in good trim my- 
self — and my sleeves well up to the elbows, and 
my breath good, and my temper.'' " And, keeping 
the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tire- 
someness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the 
metal you are in search of being the author's mind 
or meaning, his words are as the rock which you 
have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And 
your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learn- 
ing; your smelting-fumace is your own thought- 
ful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's 
meaning without those tools and that fire. Often 
you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and pa- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tientest fusing before jou can gather one grain 
of the metal. 

And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly 
and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), 
you must get into the habit of looking intensely 
at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, 
syllable by syllable — nay, letter by letter. For, 
though it is only by reason of the opposition of 
letters in the function of signs to sounds that the 
study of books is called " literature," that a man 
versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a 
man of letters, instead of a man of books or of 
words, you may yet connect with that accidental 
nomenclature this real fact — that you might read 
all the books in the British Museum (if you could 
live long enough) and remain an utterly illiterate, 
uneducated person ; but that if you read ten pages 
of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say, with 
real accuracy, you are f orevermore in some measure 
an educated person. The entire difference be- 
tween education and non-education (as regards the 
merely intellectual part of it) consists in this ac- 
curacy. A well-educated gentleman may not know 
many languages, may not be able to speak any but 
his own, may have read very few books ; but what- 
ever language he knows, he knows precisely; what- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

ever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. 
Above all, he is learned in the peerage of words, 
knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, 
at a glance, from words of modern canaille; re- 
members all their ancestry, their intermarriages, 
distant relationships, and the extent to which they 
were admitted, and offices they held among the 
national noblesse of words at any time and in any 
country. But an uneducated person may know, 
by memory, many languages, and talk them all, and 
yet truly know not a word of any — not a word 
even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensi- 
ble seaman will be able to make his way ashore at 
most ports ; yet he has only to speak a sentence 
of any language to be known for an illiterate per- 
son. So also the accent, or turn of expression of 
a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. 
And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively ad- 
mitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or 
a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament 
of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain 
degree of inferior standing forever. 



[61] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



THE PERFECT ORATOR 

R. B. SHERIDAN 

Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was born in Dublin, 
Ireland, September 30, 1751, and died in London, England, 
July 7, 1816. He lived idly as a youth, tempestuously as a 
man, and died in debt and misery. He was a good dram- 
atist, a clever parliamentarian, and a great orator, but, 
through dissipation, became broken in health, fortune, and 
reputation, and died, a discredited man, in the sixty-fifth 
year of his age. 

TMAGINE to yourself a Demosthenes, address- 
-*■ ing the most illustrious assembly in the world, 
upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustri- 
ous of nations depended. How awful such a meet- 
ing! How vast the subject! Is man possessed of 
talents adequate to the great occasion .^^ Adequate! 
Yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the 
augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of 
the orator; and the importance of the subject, for 
a while superseded, by the admiration of his talents. 
With what strength of argument, with what 
powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the 
heart, does he assault and subjugate the whole man ; 
and, at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, 
and his passions. To effect this, must be the ut- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

most effort of the most improved state of human 
nature. Not a faculty that he possesses, is here 
unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses, but 
is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal 
powers are at work; all his external, testify their 
energies. 

Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, 
the passions, are all busy. Without, every muscle, 
every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, 
but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to 
the exertions of the mind, through the kindred 
organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those 
energies from soul to soul. 

Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such 
a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence they are 
melted into one mass ; the whole assembly, actuated 
in one and the same way, become, as it were, but 
one man, and have but one voice. The universal 
cry is, — let us move agamst Philip, — let us fight 
for our liberties, — let us conquer or die! 



[63] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE SWORD 

T. B. MACAULAY 

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, was born in Rothbey 
Temple, Leicestershire, England, October 35, 1800, and died 
at Kensington, London, December 28, 1859. He won re- 
nown as historian, poet, parliamentarian and orator. 

AT the present moment I can see only one ques- 
tion in the State, the question of reform ; only 
two parties — the friends of the bill and its enemies. 
No observant and unprejudiced man can look for- 
ward, without great alarm, to the effects which the 
recent decision of the Lords may possibly produce. 
I do not predict, I do not expect, open, armed in- 
surrection. What I apprehend is this — that the 
people may engage in a silent but extensive and 
persevering war against the law. It is easy to say : 
"Be bold ; be firm ; defy intimidation ; let the law 
have its course; the law is strong enough to put 
down the seditious." Sir, we have heard this 
blustering before; and we know in what it ended. 
It is the blustering of little men, whose lot has 
fallen on a great crisis. Xerxes scourging the 
waves, Canute commanding the waves to recede from 
his footstool, were but types of the folly. The 
law has no eyes ; the law has no hands ; the law is 
nothing — nothing but a piece of paper printed 
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LAWRENCE HEADER AND SPEAKER 

by the king's printer, with the king's arms at the 
top — till public opinion breathes the breath of life 
into the dead letter. We found this in Ireland. 
The elections of 1826 — the Clare election, two 
years later — proved the folly of those who think 
that nations are governed by wax and parchment ; 
and, at length, in the close of 1828, the government 
had only one plain alternative before it — conces- 
sion or civil war. 

I know only two ways in which societies can 
permanently be governed — by public opinion, and 
by the sword. A government having at its com- 
mand the armies, the fleets, and the revenues of 
Great Britain, might possibly hold Ireland by the 
sword. So Oliver Cromwell held Ireland; so Wil- 
liam the Third held it ; so Mr. Pitt held it ; so the 
Duke of Wellington might, perhaps, have held it. 
But, to govern Great Britain by the sword — so 
wild a thought has never, I will venture to say, oc- 
curred to any public man of any party; and, if 
any man were frantic enough to make the attempt, 
he would find, before three days had expired, that 
there is no better sword than that which is fashioned 
out of a ploughshare ! But, if not by the sword, 
how are the people to be governed? I understand 
how the peace is kept at New York. It is by the 
assent and support of the people. I understand, 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

also, how the peace is kept at Milan. It is by the 
bayonets of the Austrian soldiers. But how the 
peace is to be kept when you have neither the popu- 
lar assent nor the military force — how the peace 
is to be kept in England by a government acting on 
the principles of the present opposition — I do not 
understand. 

Sir, we read that, in old times, when the villeins 
were driven to revolt by oppression — when the 
castles of the nobility were burned to the ground — 
when the warehouses of London were pillaged — 
when a hundred thousand insurgents appeared in 
arms on Blackheath — when a foul murder, perpe- 
trated in their presence, had raised their passions to 
madness — when they were looking round for some 
captain to succeed and avenge him whom they had 
ost — just then, before Hob Miller, or Tom Carter, 
or Jack Straw, could place himself at their head, 
the King rode up to them, and exclaimed, " I will 
be your leader ! " — and, at once, the infuriated 
multitude laid down their arms, submitted to his 
guidance, dispersed at his command. Herein let 
us imitate him. Let us say to the people, " We are 
your leaders — we, your own House of Commons.'^ 
This tone it is our interest and our duty to take. 
The circumstances admit of no delay. Even while 
I speak, the moments are passing away — the ir- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

revocable momentSj pregnant with the destiny of 
a great people. The country is in danger ; it may 
be saved : we can save it. This is the way — this 
is the time. In our hands are the issues of great 
good and great evil — the issues of the life and 
death of the State ! 

ON THE AMERICAN WAR 

WILLIAM PITT, LORD CHATHAM 

William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister 
of England, was born at Westminster on November 15, 1708, 
and died at his seat at Hayes, May 11, 1788. He was an 
extensively read classical scholar, and made a deep and ex- 
haustive study of the works of the ancient orators, of whom 
Demosthenes was his favorite. His style is inclined to be 
turgid, even theatric, but there Is a sincerity in his language 
that glosses over, and almost conceals, its artificiality. His 
fervor beats into a white heat the expressive words of his 
utterances, and causes them to burn their way to the very 
heart of the listener. What matter of Pitt's has come down 
to us still appears to contain in its soul the ring of his 
magic voice, and it does not require a great stretch of the 
imagination to carry the reader back to the Halls of Parlia- 
ment, when the great Commoner, and later the noble Earl, 
stood in his might and grandeur and swept away all op- 
position by the force of his eloquence and the magic 
strength of his will. Pitt, in his political battles, was many 
times overcome, but in his oratorical contests found none 
who could withstand the blows of his tremendous battle- 
axe of demonstrative oratory, or the sharp point of his 
satirical spear. 

T CANNOT, my Lords, I will not, join in con- 

■*• gratulation on misfortune and disgrace. 

This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

moment. It is not a time for adulation; the 
smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged 
and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct 
the throne in the language of truth. We must, 
if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which 
envelope it; and display, in its full danger and 
genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our 
doors. Can ministers still presume to expect sup- 
port in their infatuation .f* Can parliament be so 
dead to its dignity and duty, as to give its support 
to measures thus obtruded and forced upon it? 
Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late 
flourishing empire to scorn and contempt 1 " But 
yesterday, and Britain might have stood against 
the world ; now, none so poor to do her reverence ! " 
— The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, 
but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are 
abetted against us, supplied with every military 
store, have their interests consulted, and their am- 
bassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemy; 
and ministers do not — and dare not — interpose 
with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our 
army abroad is in part known. No man more 
highly esteems and honors the British troops than 
I do ; I know their virtues and their valor ; I know 
they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and 
I know that the conquest of British America is an 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

impossibility. You cannot, my Lords, you cannot 
conquer America. What is your present situation 
there? We do not know the worst; but we know 
that, in three campaigns, we have done nothing, 
and suffered much. You may swell every expense, 
accumulate every assistance, and extend your traf- 
fic to the shambles of every German despot; your 
attempts will be forever vain and impotent — 
doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on 
which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable 
resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to over- 
run them with the mercenary sons of rapine and 
plunder, devoting them and their possessions to 
the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an 
American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign 
troop was landed in my country, I never would lay 
down my arms — never, never, never 1 

But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition 
to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared 
to authorize and associate, to our arms, the toma- 
hawk and scalping-knif e of the savage ? — to call, 
into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabi- 
tants of the woods ? — to delegate, to the merci- 
less Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to 
wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our 
brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud 
for redress and punishment. But, my Lords, this 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

barbarous measure has been defended, not only on 
the principles of policy and necessity, but also 
those of morality ; " for it is perfectly allowable," 
says Lord Suffolk, " to use all the means which 
God and nature have put into our hands." I am 
astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles 
confessed; to hear them avowed in this House; 
or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to 
encroach upon so much of your attention, but I 
cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself im- 
pelled to speak. My Lords, we are called upon as 
members of this House, as men, as Christians to 
protest against such horrible barbarity ! — " That 
God and Nature have put into our hands 1 " What 
ideas of God and nature that noble Lord may en- 
tertain, I know not; but I know that such detest- 
able principles are equally abhorrent to religion 
and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred 
sanction of God and nature to the massacres 
of the Indian scalping-knif e ! — to the cannibal 
savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking 
the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions 
shock every precept of morality, every feeling of 
humanity, every sentiment of honor. These 
abominable principles, and this more abominable 
avowal of them, demand the most decisive indigna- 
tion! 

[70] 



LAWR]£NCE READER AND SPEAKEII 
PANEGYRIC ON WILLIAM OF ORANGE 

WILLIAM C. PLUNKET 

Baron William Conyngham Plunket was born in Ireland 
in 1764. As a lawyer, he was considered the leader of the 
Dublin bar at its golden age; as an advocate, he was com- 
parable with Erskine; as a statesman, he ranked among 
the foremost of his age; as an orator, he has not been sur- 
passed by any of his contemporaries. " His oratory," says 
a writer in the " Ecinbufgh Review," " was of a very high 
kind; in perfect mastery of the topics he touched; in ful- 
ness and accuracy of information; in reasoning, not rapid 
and vehement, but earnest, vigorous, and sustained; in the 
dignity and propriety of its diction, and in the occasional 
beauty of its illustrations — it has not been excelled in the 
British Senate." He died in 1854. 

T) ERHAPS, my Lords, there is not to be found 
-*• in the annals of history a character more 
truly great than that of William the Third. Per- 
haps no person has ever appeared on the theatre 
of the world, who has conferred more essential or 
more lasting benefits on mankind; on these 
countries certainly none. When I look at the ab- 
stract merits of his character, I contemplate him 
with admiration and reverence. Lord of a petty 
principality ; destitute of all resources but those 
with which nature had endowed him ; regarded with 
jealousy and envy by those whose battles he fought ; 
thwarted in all his counsels ; embarrassed in all his 
movements ; deserted in his most critical enter- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

prise; he continued to mould all those discordant 
materials, to govern all those warring interests, 
and merely by the force of his genius, the as- 
cendancy of his integrity, and the unmovable firm- 
ness and constancy of his nature, to combine them 
into an indissoluble alliance against the schemes of 
despotism and universal domination of the most 
powerful monarch in Europe, seconded by the 
ablest generals, at the head of the bravest and best 
disciplined armies in the world, and wielding, with- 
out check or control, the unlimited resources of his 
empire. He was not a consummate general: mili- 
tary men will point out his errors ; in that respect 
fortune did not favor him, save by throwing the 
lustre of adversity over all his virtues. He sus- 
tained defeat after defeat, but always rose adversa 
verum immersahilis unda. Looking merely at his 
shining qualities and achievements, I admire him 
as I do a Scipio, a Regulus, a Fabius; a model of 
tranquil courage, undeviating probity, and armed 
with a resoluteness and constancy in the cause of 
truth and freedom, which rendered him superior 
to the accidents that control the fate of ordinary 
men. 



[72] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS 

EDMUND BUEKE 

Edmund Burke, one of the greatest masters of composi- 
tion of modern times, was born in Dublin, Ireland, January 
12, 1729, and died in Bath, England, July 8, 1797. His re- 
nown as an orator rests on his written and not his spoken 
words, as his delivery was faulty and his voice not of a 
pleasing quality. His compositions, however, are master- 
pieces, and although at times his sentences are long and 
somewhat involved, his reasoning is plain, his language 
chaste and expressive, and his argument convincing. He in- 
fluenced not only bis time, but the generations following 
him. 

MY LORDS, you have now heard the princi- 
ples on which Mr. Hastings governs the 
part of Asia subjected to the British Empire. 
Here he has declared his opinion, that he is a des- 
potic prince; that he is to use arbitrary power; 
and, of course, all his acts are covered with that 
shield. " I know," says he, '' the Constitution of 
Asia only from its practice." Will your Lord- 
ships submit to hear the corrupt practices of man- 
kind made the principles of government.? 

He have arbitrary power ! My Lords, the East 
India Company have not arbitrary power to give 
him ; the King has no arbitrary power to give him ; 
your Lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor 
the whole Legislature, We have no arbitrary 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing 
which neither any man can hold nor any man can 
give. No man can lawfully govern himself ac- 
cording to his own will, much less can one person 
be governed by the will of another. We are all 
born in subjection, all born equally, high and low, 
governors and governed, in sub j ection to one great, 
immutable pre-existent law, prior to all our de- 
vices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount 
to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent 
to our very existence, by which we are knit and 
connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out 
of which we cannot stir. 

This great law does not arise from our conven- 
tions or compacts ; on the contrary, it gives to our 
conventions and compacts all the force and sanc- 
tion they can have ; — it does not arise from our 
vain institutions. Every good gift is of God; all 
power is of God ; — and He, who has given the 
power, and from whom alone it originates, will 
never suffer the exercise of it to be practiced upon 
any less solid foundation than the power itself. 
If then all dominion of man over man, is the effect 
of the divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal 
laws of Him that gave it, with which no human 
authority can dispense; neither he that exercises 
it, nor even those who are sub j ect to it : and if they 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

were mad enough to make an express compact that 
should release their magistrate from his duty, and 
should declare their lives, liberties, and properties 
dependent upon, not rules and laws, but his mere 
capricious will, that covenant would be void. 

This arbitrary power is not to be had by con- 
quest. Nor can any sovereign have it by succes- 
sion ; for no man can succeed to fraud, rapine, and 
violence. Those who give and those who receive 
arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is 
no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his 
power, wherever it shall show its face to the world. 

Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. 
Name me a magistrate, and I will name property ; 
name me power and I will name protection. It is 
a contradiction in terms ; it is blasphemy in religion, 
it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can 
have arbitrary power. In every patent of office 
the duty is included. For what else does a magis- 
trate exist? To suppose for power, is an ab- 
surdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed 
by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all 
subject. We may bite our chains, if we will; but 
we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught 
that man is bom to be governed by law; and he 
that will substitute will in place of it, is an enemy 
to God. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just 
to remind your Lordships of this, — that Mr. Hast- 
ings' government was one whole system of oppres- 
sion, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the 
public, and of supersession of the whole system 
of the English Government, in order to vest in the 
worst of the natives all the power that could pos- 
sibly exist in any government ; in order to defeat 
the ends which all governments ought, in common, 
to have in view. In the name of the Commons of 
England I charge all this villainy upon Warren 
Hastings, in this last moment of my application 
to you. 

Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by 
the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren 
Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. 

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of 
Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose par- 
liamentary trust he has abused. 

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of 
Great Britain, whose national character he has 
dishonored. 

I impeach him in the name of the people of 
India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has sub- 
verted. 

I impeach him in the name of the people of 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

India, whose property he has destroyed, whose 
country he has laid waste and desolate. 

I impeach him in the name of human nature it- 
self, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and 
oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in 
the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws 
of justice, which ought equally to pervade every 
age, condition, rank, and situation, in the world. 

INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF 
CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS 

THOMAS ERSKINE 

Thomas Erskine, Lord Erskine, was the youngest son of 
Henry David, tenth earl of Buchan; and was born in Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, Jan. 10, 1750. His early education was 
had at the high school of Edinburgh, and later he attended 
the grammar school of St. Andrews, to which place the 
family had moved. He was a midshipman in the navy for 
a short time and later purchased a commission in the army, 
but tired of this life and took up the study of law. He 
was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, April 26, 1775, and 
on Jan. 13, 1776, he entered his name on the books of 
Trinity College, Cambridge. His rise as an advocate was 
wonderfully rapid, and after his first speech, it is said that 
the attorneys flocked round him with their retainers, and 
placed in his hands sixty-five before he quitted Westmin- 
ster Hall. Four years and a half after he was called to the 
bar, he had cleared from eight to nine thousand pounds, be- 
sides paying his debts. His first speech in Parliament was a 
dismal failure caused by his nervousness, or, as Sheridan put 
it, his fear of Pitt. He died November 17, 1833. Erskine 
is considered, by the best authorities, the greatest forensic 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

orator that Great Britain has produced, and although a 
member of Parliament for a number of years, he never 
met with any marked success as a parliamentarian speaker, 
but as an advocate pleading his client's cause before a 
jury, it is doubtful if his equal has existed in modern times. 
His first great success was achieved when he appeared 
for Captain Baillie. His second, and perhaps greatest suc- 
cess, was gained when he defended Lord George Gordon 
against a charge of treason, and it was this victory that 
annihilated the doctrine of constructive treason in England. 

NEWTON was a Christian! Newton, whose 
mind burst forth from the fetters cast by 
nature upon our finite conceptions ; Newton, whose 
science was truth, and the foundation of whose 
knowledge of it was philosophy. Not those vision- 
ary and arrogant assumptions which too often 
usurp its name, but philosophy resting upon the 
basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot 
lie. Newton, who carried the line and rule to the 
utmost barriers of creation, and explored the princi- 
ples by which, no doubt, all created matter is held 
together and exists. But this extraordinary man, 
in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, per- 
haps, the errors which a minuter investigation of 
the created things on this earth might have taught 
him of the essence of his creator. 

What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, 
who looked into the organic structure of all mat- 
ter, even to the brute inanimate substances which 
the foot treads on. Such a man may be supposed 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine, 
to " look through nature up to nature's God.'' 
Yet the result of all this contemplation was the 
most confirmed and devout belief in all which the 
other holds in contempt as despicable and drivelling 
superstition. But this error might, perhaps, arise 
from a want of due attention to the foundation of 
human judgment, and the structure of that under- 
standing which God has given us for the investiga- 
tion of truth. Let that question be answered by 
Mr. Locke, who was to the highest pitch of devo- 
tion and adoration a Christian. Mr. Locke, whose 
office was to detect the errors of thinking by going 
up to the fountains of thought, and to direct 
into the proper track of reasoning the devious 
mind of man, by showing him its whole process, 
from the perceptions of sense to the last conclu- 
sions of ratiocination ; putting a rein, besides, upon 
false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of 
human judgment. 

But these men were only deep thinkers, and 
lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic 
of the world, and to the laws which practically 
regulate mankind. Gentlemen, in the place where 
you now sit to administer the justice of this great 
country, above a century ago the never-to-be-for- 
gotten Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its 
truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious ex- 
ample of its fruits in man; administering human 
justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the 
pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, which 
has been and will be, in all ages, a subject of the 
highest reverence and admiration. 

But it is said by Mr. Paine, that the Christian 
fable is but the tale of the more ancient supersti- 
tions of the world, and may be easily detected by 
a proper understanding of the mythologies of the 
heathens. Did Milton understand those mytholo- 
gies? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the 
superstitions of the world? No; they were the 
subject of his immortal song; and though shut out 
from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth 
from the stores of a memory rich with all that man 
ever knew, and laid them in their order as the il- 
lustration of that real and exalted faith, the un- 
questionable source of that fervid genius, which 
cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of 
man. 

He pass'd the bounds of flaming space, 
Where angels tremble while they gaze; 
He saw, till, blasted with excess of lights 
He clos'd his eyes in endless night ! 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



ON THE IRISH DISTURBANCE BILL 



Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish orator and statesman, 
was born at Carhen House, Cahirciveen, County Kerry, Ire- 
land, Aug. 6, 1775, and died in Genoa, Italy, May 15, 1847. 
He stood in the front rank as an advocate, and hardly had 
an equal in the power of winning juries to his way of think- 
ing; as an orator he ranked with Plunket, and, while his 
style at times was faulty, he possessed a manly power, and 
a subtle skill, which enabled him to achieve surprising re- 
sults. 

T DO not rise to fawn or cringe to this House; 
-■■ I do not rise to supplicate you to be merci- 
ful toward the Nation to which I belong, — toward 
a Nation which, though subject to England, yet is 
distinct from it. It is a distinct Nation; it has 
been treated as such by this country, as may be 
proved by history, and by seven hundred years 
of tyranny. I call upon this House, as you value 
the liberty of England, not to allow the present 
nefarious bill to pass. In it are involved the 
liberties of England, the liberty of the Press, and 
of every other institution dear to Englishmen. 
Against the bill I protest, in the name of the Irish 
people, and in the face of Heaven. I treat with 
scorn the puny and pitiful assertions, that griev- 
ances are not to be complained of, — and our re- 
dress is not to be agitated; for, in such cases, 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

remonstrances cannot be too strong, agitation 
cannot be too violent, to show to the world with 
what injustice our fair claims are met, and under 
what tyranny the people suffer. 

The clause which does away with trial by jury, 
— what, in the name of Heaven, is it, if it is not 
the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal? It 
drives the judge from his bench; it does away with 
that which is more sacred than the Throne itself, — 
that for which your King reigns, your lords de- 
liberate, your commons assemble. If I ever 
doubted, before, of the success of our agitation 
for repeal, this bill, — this infamous bill — the way 
in which it has been received by the House ; the 
manner in which its opponents have been treated; 
the personalities to which they have been subj ected ; 
the yells with which one of them has this night 
been greeted, — all these things dissipate my 
doubts, and tell me of its complete and early 
triumph. Do you think those yells will be for- 
gotten.? Do you suppose their echo will not reach 
the plains of my injured and insulted country; 
that they will not be whispered in her green val- 
leys, and heard from her lofty hills.? Oh, they 
will be heard there ! — yes ; and they will not be 
forgotten. The youth of Ireland will bound with 
indignation, — they will say, " We are eight mil- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

lions ; and you treat us thus, as though we were no 
more to your country than the isle of Guernsey or 
of Jersey ! " 

I have done my duty. I stand acquitted to my 
conscience and my country. I have opposed this 
measure throughout ; and I now protest against it, 
as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust; as es- 
tablishing an infamous precedent, by retaliating 
crime against crime, as tyrannous, — cruelly and 
vindictively tyrannous ! 

PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE ATHENIANS 

DEMOSTHENES 

Demosthenes, the greatest of Grecian orators, was born 
about 383 B. C, and died at Calaureia, 323 B. C. As a 
youth he showed no indication of that great ability for pub- 
lic speaking which he afterwards displayed, being nervous, 
timid, and weak, and grew up with a tendency to effeminacy; 
he was awkward in motion, defective in speech, and pos- 
sessed none of the qualities commonly ascribed to the orator. 
All these natural disadvantages he overcame by incessant 
labor, and finally became the greatest orator of Athens, and 
of all Greece. 

YOU, Athenians, were never known to live con- 
tented in a slavish though secure obedience 
to unjust and arbitrary power. No. Our whole 
history is a series of gallant contests for pre- 
eminence : the whole period of our natural existence 
hath been spent in braving dangers, for the sake 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

of glory and renown. And so highly do you es- 
teem such conduct, as characteristic of the Athen- 
ian spirit, that those of your ancestors who were 
most eminent for it, are ever the most favorite ob- 
jects of your praise. And with reason: for, who 
can reflect, without astonishment, on the magnanim- 
ity of those men who resigned their lands, gave 
up their city, and embarked in their ships, rather 
than live at the bidding of a stranger? The 
Athenians of that day looked out for no speaker, 
no general, to procure them a state of easy slavery. 
They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they 
were allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. For 
it was a principle fixed deeply in every breast, that 
man was not born to his parents only, but to his 
country. And mark the distinction. He who re- 
gards himself as bom only to his parents waits in 
passive submission for the hour of his natural dis- 
solution. He who considers that he is the child 
of his country also, volunteers to meet death rather 
than behold that country reduced to vassalage; 
and thinks those insults and disgraces which he 
must endure, in a state enslaved, much more ter- 
rible than death. 

Should I attempt to assert that it was I who 
inspired you with sentiments worthy of your an- 
cestors, I should meet the just resentment of every 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

hearer. No : it is my point to show that such senti- 
ments are properly your own; that they were the 
sentiments of my country long before my days. I 
claim but my share of merit in having acted on 
such principles in every part of my administra- 
tion. He, then, who condemns every part of my 
administration — he who directs you to treat me 
with severity, as one who hath involved the State 
in terrors and dangers — while he labors to deprive 
me of present honors, robs you of the applause of 
all posterity. For, if you now pronounce, that, as 
my public conduct hath not been right, Ctesiphon 
must stand condemned, it must be thought that you 
yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe your 
present state to the caprice of fortune. But it 
cannot be ! No, my countrymen, it cannot be that 
you have acted wrong in encountering danger 
bravely for the liberty and safety of all Greece. 
No ! I swear it by the spirits of our sires, who 
rushed upon destruction at Marathon ! — by those 
who stood arrayed at Plataeal — by those who 
fought the sea-fight at Salamis! — by the men 
of Artemisium! — by the others, so many and so 
brave, who now rest in our public sepulchres! — - 
all of whom their country judged worthy of the 
same honor; all, I say, JEschines; not those only 
who prevailed, not those only who were victorious. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

— And with reason. What was the part of gal- 
lant men, they all performed. Their success was 
such as the Supreme Ruler of the world dispensed 
to each. 

GREAT ORATORS AND THEIR TRAINING 

FROM 
THE DIALOGUE ON ORATORY 

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO 

Marcus TuUius Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, was 
born at Arpinum, 106 B. C, and died at his Formian villa, 
at the close of the year 43 B. C. He studied under Greek 
and Roman teachers, and commenced in early life to pre- 
pare himself as an advocate. He studied declamation under 
the best masters, and travelled much in order to store his 
mind with information. He was qualified both by nature 
and by training for the high position he attained as an 
orator, a statesman, and a man of letters. 

FOR who can suppose that amid the great multi- 
tude of students, the utmost abundance of 
masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the 
infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards 
offered to eloquence, there is any other reason to be 
found for the small number of orators than the in- 
credible magnitude and difficulty of the art.? A 
knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, 
without which volubility of words is empty and 
ridiculous ; speech itself is to be formed, not merely 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

by choice, but by careful construction of words ; 
and all the emotions of the mind which nature has 
given to man, must be intimately known ; for all the 
force and art of speaking must be employed in 
allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. 
To this must be added a certain portion of grace 
and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and 
quickness and brevity in replying as well as attack- 
ing, accompanied with refined decorum and urbanity. 
Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of 
examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the 
knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law 
in particular, to be neglected. And why need I 
add any remarks of delivery itself, which is to be 
ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, 
and by modulation and variation of the voice, the 
great power of which, alone and in itself, the com- 
paratively trivial art of actors and the stage 
proves ; on which though all bestow their utmost 
labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who 
knows not how few there are, and have ever been, 
to whom we can attend with patience.'' What can 
I say of that repository for all things, the mem- 
ory ; which, unless it be made the keeper of the 
matter and words that are the fruits of thought 
and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, 
though they be of the highest degree of excellence, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

will be of no avail? Let us then cease to wonder 
what is the cause of the scarcity of good speak- 
ers, since eloquence results from all those qualifi- 
cations, in each of which singly it is a great merit 
to labor successfully ; and let us rather exhort our 
children, and others whose glory and honor is dear 
to us, to contemplate in their minds the full mag- 
nitude of the object, and not to trust that they 
can reach the height at which they aim by the 
aid of the precepts, masters, and exercises that 
they are all now following, but to understand that 
they must adopt others of a different character. 

In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an ora- 
tor possessed of every praiseworthy accomplish- 
ment unless he has attained the knowledge of 
everything important, and of all liberal arts; for 
his language must be ornate and copious from 
knowledge, since unless there be beneath the sur- 
face matter understood and felt by the speaker, 
oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow 
of words. . . . 

" I am then of opinion," said Crassus, " that 
nature and genius in the first place contribute most 
aid to speaking; and that to those writers on the 
art to whom Antonius just now alluded, it was 
not skill and method in speaking, but natural 
talent that was wanting; for there ought to be 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

certain lively powers in the mind and understand- 
ing, which may be acute to invent, fertile to ex- 
plain and adorn, and strong and retentive to 
remember; and if any one imagines that these 
powers may be acquired by art (which is false, 
for it is very well if they can be animated and 
excited by art; but they certainly cannot by art 
be ingrafted or instilled, since they are all the 
gifts of nature), what will he say of those quah- 
ties which are certainly born with the man himself 
— volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of 
lungs, and a peculiar conformation and aspect of 
the whole countenance and body? I do not say 
that art cannot improve in these particulars (for 
I am not ignorant that what is good may be made 
better by education, and what is not very good 
may be in some degree polished and amended) ; 
but there are some persons so hesitating in their 
speech, so inharmonious in their tone of voice, 
or so unwieldy and rude in the air and movements 
of their bodies, that whatever power they pos- 
sess either from genius or art, they can never be 
reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers ; 
while there are others so happily qualified in these 
respects, so eminently adorned with the gifts of 
nature, that they seem not to have been born hke 
other men, but moulded by some divinity. It is 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

indeed a great task and enterprise for a person to 
undertake and profess that while every one else is 
silent, he alone must be heard on the most impor- 
tant subjects, and in a large assembly of men; 
for there is scarcely any one present who is not 
sharper and quicker to discover defects in the 
speaker than merits ; and thus whatever offends 
the hearer effaces the recollection of what is worthy 
of praise. I do not make these observations for 
the purpose of altogether deterring young men 
from the study of oratory, even if they be deficient 
in some natural endowments. For who does not 
perceive that to C. Caelius, my contemporary, a 
new man, the mere mediocrity in speaking which 
he was enabled to attain was a great honor? Who 
does not know that Q. Varius, your equal in age, 
a clumsy uncouth man, has obtained his great pop- 
ularity by the cultivation of such faculties as he 
has? 

But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, 
we must imagine in our discussion an orator from 
whom every kind of fault is abstracted, and who 
is adorned with every kind of merit. But if the 
multitude of suits, if the variety of causes, if the 
rabble and barbarism of the forum, afford room 
for even the most wretched speakers, we must not 
for that reason take our eyes from the object of 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

our inquiry. In those arts in which it is not indis- 
pensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal 
amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost 
fastidiously, do we judge? For there are no suits 
or controversies which can force men, though they 
may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to 
endure also bad actors upon the stage. The ora- 
tor, therefore, must take the most studious precau- 
tion not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily 
must satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to 
those who are at liberty to judge disinterestedly. 
If you would know what I myself think, I will ex- 
press to you, my intimate friends, what I have hith- 
erto never mentioned, and thought that I never 
should mention. To me, those who speak best and 
with the utmost ease and grace, appear, if they do 
not commence their speeches with some timidity, 
and show some confusion in the exordium, to have 
almost lost the sense of shame; though it is im- 
possible that such should not be the case: for the 
hetter qualified a man is to speak, the more he 
fears the difficulties of speaking, the uncertain 
success of a speech, and the expectation of the audi- 
ence. But he who can produce and deliver noth- 
ing worthy of his subject, nothing worthy of the 
name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention of 
his audience, seems to me, though he be ever so 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

confused while he is speaking, to be downright 
shameless ; for we ought to avoid a character for 
shamelessness, not by testifying shame, but by not 
doing that which does not become us. But the 
speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the case 
with many) I regard as deserving not only of re- 
buke but of personal castigation. Indeed, what I 
often observe in you I very frequently experience 
in myself; that I turn pale in the outset of my 
speech, and feel a tremor through my whole 
thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I was a 
young man, I was on one occasion so timid in com- 
mencing an accusation, that I owed to Q. Maximus 
the greatest of obligations for immediately dis- 
missing the assembly as soon as he saw me abso- 
lutely disheartened and incapacitated through 
fear." Here they all signified assent, looked sig- 
nificantly at one another, and began to talk to- 
gether; for there was a wonderful modesty in 
Crassus, which however was not only no disadvan- 
tage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by 
giving it the recommendation of probity. 



[92] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE 
SENATE 

HENRY CLAY 

Henry Clay, "the great American," was born in Ashland, 
Hanover County, Va., April 12, 1777, and died in "Washing- 
ton, D. C, July 29 f 1852. He was a convincing orator, a 
wonderful parliamentarian, a commanding presiding officer, 
and a great statesman. Henry Clay was the son of a poor 
Baptist clergyman, and in his youth possessed only scant 
advantages, but was blessed witii a determination that en- 
abled him to overcome the many obstacles that stood be- 
tween him and renown. His speeches should not be judged 
from the brief fragments handed down to us by inadequate 
reports, but from their influence in shaping the destiny of 
his country. We know that his oratory was convincing and 
powerful, and by its means he exerted a tremendous influ- 
ence over his party, holding its leadership for many years, 
which even a man of Webster's genius was unable to shake. 
Henry Clay was broad-minded and liberal, a firm believer 
in liberty, but in favor of its spread by constitutional means 
only, and a genuine American at all times and in all sta- 
tions and positions of life. 

FROM 1806, the period of my entrance upon 
this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the 
present time, I have been engaged in the public 
councils, at home or abroad. Of the services ren- 
dered during that long and arduous period of my 
life, it does not become me to speak ; history, if she 
deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollec- 
tions of my humble actions shall be transmitted to 
posterity, are the best, the truest, the most impar- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tial judges. When death has closed the scene, 
their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I 
commit myself. 

During that long period, however, I have not 
escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed 
to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, 
most unrelenting, and most malignant character; 
and, though not always insensible to the pain it 
was meant to inflict, I have borne it, in general, 
with composure, and without disturbance, waiting, 
as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confi- 
dence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of 
truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would 
settle all things as they should be, and that, what- 
ever wrong or injustice I might experience at the 
hands of men, He to whom all hearts are open and 
fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensa- 
tions of His providence, rectify all error, redress 
all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done. 

But I have not, meanwhile, been unsustained. 
Everywhere throughout the extent of this great 
continent, I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faith- 
ful, and devoted friends, who have known me, 
loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, 
if language were capable of fully expressing my 
acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return 
I have the power to make for their genuine, disin- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

terested, and persevering fidelit}^ and devoted at- 
tachment, the feehngs and sentiments of a heart 
overflowing with never-ceasing gratitude. If, how- 
ever, I fail in suitable language to express my 
gratitude to them for all the kindness they have 
shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all 
commensurate with those feelings of gratitude 
with which I have been inspired by the State whose 
humble representative and servant I have been in 
this chamber? 

I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Ken- 
tucky, now, nearly forty-five years ago ; I went as 
an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age 
of maj ority ; who had never recognized a father's 
smile, nor felt his warm caresses ; poor, penniless, 
without the favor of the great, with an imperfect 
and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the 
ordinary business and common pursuits of life ; but 
scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil, 
when I was embraced with parental fondness, ca- 
ressed as though I had been a favorite child, and 
patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. 

From that period the highest honors of the 
State have been freely bestowed upon me; and 
when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detrac- 
tion, I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the 
world, she interposed her broad and impenetrable 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed 
for my destruction, and vindicated my good name 
from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. 
I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a 
while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted 
and whole-souled people of that State; and when 
the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope 
that my earthly remains will be laid under her 
green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic 
sons. 

In the course of a long and arduous public serv- 
ice, especially during the last eleven years in which 
I have held a seat in the Senate, from the same 
ardor and enthusiasm of character, I have no doubt, 
in the heat of debate, and in an honest endeavor 
to maintain my opinions against adverse opinions 
alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to 
be adopted for the public welfare, I may often have 
inadvertently and unintentionally, in moments of 
excited debate, made use of language that has been 
offensive, and susceptible of injurious interpreta- 
tion, toward my brother Senators. If there be any 
here who retain wounded feelings of injury or dis- 
satisfaction, produced on such occasions, I beg to 
assure them that I now offer the most ample apol- 
ogy for any departure on my part from the ev«- 
tablished rules of parliamentary decorum and 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

courtesy. On the other hand, I assure Senators, 
one and all, without exception and without reserve, 
that I retire from this chamber without carrying 
with me a single feeling of resentment or dissatis- 
faction to the Senate or any of its members. 

I go from this place under the hope that we 
shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion what- 
ever personal collisions may, at any time, unfort- 
unately have occurred between us ; and that our 
recollections shall dwell in future only on those 
conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual strug- 
gles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, 
argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate 
and to the nation, in which each has sought and 
contended for what he deemed the best mode of ac- 
complishing one common object, the interest and 
best happiness of our own beloved country. To 
these thrilling and delightful scenes, it will be my 
pleasure and my pride to look back, on my retire- 
ment, with unmeasured satisfaction. 



[97] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE AS 
RELATED TO THE UNITED STATES 

From a Speech before the House of Representatives 
in 1818. 

HENRY CLAY 

IT is the doctrine of thrones that man is too 
ignorant to govern himself. Their partisans 
assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations ; if 
they cannot command universal assent to the prop- 
osition, it is then demanded as to particular nations ; 
and our pride and our presumption too often make 
converts of us. I contend that it is to arraign the 
dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that 
he has created beings incapable of governing them- 
selves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self-gov- 
ernment is the natural government of man, and for 
proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. 
Were I to speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to 
human liberty, my speculation should be founded 
rather upon the vices, refinements, or density of 
population. Crowded together in compact masses, 
even if they were philosophers, the contagion of 
the passions is communicated and caught, and 
the effect too often, I admit, is the overthrow of 
liberty. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

With regard to their superstition, they worship 
the same God with us. Their prayers are offered 
up in their temples to the same Redeemer whose 
intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there 
anything in the Cathohc rehgion unfavorable to 
freedom. All religions united with government 
are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated 
from government are compatible with liberty. If 
the people of Spanish America have not already 
gone as far in religious toleration as we have, 
the difference in their condition from ours should 
not be forgotten. Everything is progressive ; and 
in time I hope to see them imitating in this respect 
our example. But grant that the people of 
Spanish America are ignorant, and. incompetent 
for free government; to whom is that ignorance 
to be ascribed? Is it not to the execrable system 
of Spain, which she seeks again to establish and 
perpetuate? So far from chilling our hearts, it 
ought to increase our solicitude for our unfortu- 
nate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire 
the redemption of the minds and bodies of unborn 
millions from the brutifying effects of a system 
whose tendency is to stifle the faculties of the soul, 
and to degrade them to the level of beasts. I 
would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. 
Was it for yourselves only that you nobly fought? 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

No, no i It was the chains that were forging for 
your posterity that made you fly to arms; and 
scattering the elements of these chains to the 
winds, you transmitted to us the rich inheritance 
of Hberty. 

ON THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR 
INDEPENDENCE 

From a speech in 1824. 

HENRY CLAY 

ARE we so mean, so base, so despicable, that 
we may not attempt to express our horror, 
utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atro- 
cious war that ever stained earth or shocked high 
Heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and 
infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by 
the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and 
rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, 
at the mere details of which the heart sickens and 
recoils ? 

If the great body of Christendom can look on 
calmly and coolly while all this is perpetrated on 
a Christian people, in its own immediate vicinity, 
in its very presence, let us at least evince that one 
of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensi- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

bility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sym- 
pathy for Christian sufferings ; that in this remote 
quarter of the world there are hearts not yet 
closed against compassion for human woes, that 
can pour out their indignant feelings at the op- 
pression of a people endeared to us by every 
ancient recollection and every modern tie. Sir, 
attempts have been made to alarm the committee 
by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediter- 
ranean ; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium 
has been spread before us to repress our sensibiH- 
ties and to eradicate our humanity. Ah, sir! 
" What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul? " or what shall it 
avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable 
trade and lose its liberties? 

" GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME 
DEATH " 

PATRICK HENEY 

Patrick Henry, American patriot, statesman, and orator, 
was born in the County of Hanover, Colony of Virginia, 
May 29, 1736, and died in Charlotte County, Va., June 6, 
1799. He held many public oflSces, the enumeration of 
which is unnecessary here. No American has had a greater 
influence on the oratory of his country than Patrick Henry. 
His great fault was indolence, and through his entire life 
he paid little attention to detail. He knew little of science 
and of literature, but was a lover of nature, and a student 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

of men. His delivery was natural, deliberate, and dignified, 
although at times intensely passionate, and his gestures, al- 
ways appropriate and expressive, corresponded in every re- 
spect with his voice. His manner was certainly superior to his 
matter; his chief power consisted in his delivery, and above 
all else he was an orator. After his admission to the bar 
he devoted more time to study, particularly to history, but 
he never became what could be considered a student, and 
his matter lacks both variety and fulness. Patrick Henry 
has been held up as an example of what can be done by 
a man who permits himself to be developed by nature and 
not by work, and this argument has injuriously affected the 
lives of many youths, who have refrained from effort, and 
glided down the years of time, waiting for nature to turn 
them into geniuses. Patrick Henry, great as he was, would, 
no doubt, have been greater as an orator, a statesman, and 
a scholar, had he developed, by study, the wonderful talent 
God intrusted to him. The secret of success, in all fields 
of usefulness, is labor. The speech which follows was de- 
livered in the Virginia Convention, on a resolution to put 
the Commonwealth into a state of defence, March 2S, 1775. 

NO man thinks more highly than I do of the 
patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very 
worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the 
house. But different men often see the same sub- 
ject in different lights ; and, therefore, I hope it 
will not be thought disrespectful of those gentle- 
men, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a charac- 
ter very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my 
sentiments freely and without reserve. This is 
no time for ceremony. The question before the 
house is one of awful moment to this country. 
For my own part, I consider it as nothing less 
than a question of freedom or slavery; and in 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought 
to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in 
this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and 
fulfil the great responsibihty which we hold to 
God and our country. Should I keep back my 
opinions at such a time, through fear of giving 
offence, I should consider myself as guilty of 
treason toward my country, and of an act of 
disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which 
I revere above all earthly kings. 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge 
in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our 
eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the 
song of that siren, till she transforms us into 
beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged 
in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are 
we disposed to be of the number of those, who, 
having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, 
the things which so nearly concern their temporal 
salvation.? For my part, whatever anguish of 
spirit it may cost, I - am willing to know the 
whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide 
for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are 

guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I 

know of no way of judging of the future but by 

the past. And judging by the past, I wish to 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

know what there has been in the conduct of the 
British Ministry for the last ten years to justify 
those hopes with which gentlemen have been 
pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is 
it that insidious smile with which our petition has 
been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will 
prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not your- 
selves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves 
how this gracious reception of our petition com- 
ports with those warlike preparations which cover 
our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and 
armies necessary to a work of love and reconcilia- 
tion.'^ Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to 
be reconciled, that force must be called in to win 
back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. 
These are the implements of war and subjugation; 
the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask 
gentlemen, sir. What means this martial array, 
if its purpose be not to force us to submission? 
Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive 
for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this 
quarter of the world, to call for all this accumula- 
tion of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. 
They are meant for us: they can be meant for 
no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet 
upon us those chains which the British Ministry 
have been so long forging. And what have we 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to oppose to them ? Shall we try argument ? Sir, 
we have been trying that for the last ten years. 
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? 
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every 
light of which it is capable; but it has been all 
in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble 
supplication.? What terms shall we find, which 
have not already been exhausted .? Let us not, I 
beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, 
we have done everything that could be done, to 
avert the storm which is now coming on. We 
have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have 
supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before 
the throne, and have implored its interposition to 
arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and 
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; 
our remonstrances have produced additional vio- 
lence and insult; our supplications have been dis- 
regarded; and we have been spurned, with con- 
tempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, 
after these things, may we indulge the fond hope 
of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer 
any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if 
we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable 
privileges for which we have been so long contend- 
ing — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble 
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

and which we have pledged ourselves never to 
abandon, until the glorious object of our contest 
shall be obtained — we must fight! I repeat it, 
sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to 
the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to 
cope with so formidable an adversary. But when 
shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, 
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally 
disarmed, and when a British guard shall be sta- 
tioned in every house? Shall we gather strength 
by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire 
the means of effectual resistance by lying su- 
pinely on our backs and hugging the delusive 
phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have 
bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, 
if we make a proper use of those means which 
the God of nature hath placed in our power. 
Three millions of people armed in the holy 
cause of liberty, and in such a country as 
that which we possess, are invincible by any 
force which our enemy can send against us. Be- 
sides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. 
There is a just God who presides over the desti- 
nies of nations, and who will raise up friends to 
fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not 
to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the act- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

ive, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. 
If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too 
late to retire from the contest. There is no re- 
treat, but in submission and slavery ! Our chains 
are forged! Their clanking may be heard on 
the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — 
and let it come ! I repeat it, sir, let it come. 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gen- 
tlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no 
peace. The war is actually begun ! The next 
gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our 
ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren 
are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? 
What is it that gentlemen wish.? What would 
they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, 
as to be purchased at the price of chains and 
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not 
what course others may take ; but as for me, give 
me liberty or give me death! 



[107] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



CONSEQUENCES WHICH WOULD HAVE 

RESULTED HAD ENGLAND 

CONQUERED AMERICA 

PATRICK HENRY 

WHAT would have been the consequences, sir, 
if we had been conquered? Were we not 
fighting against that majesty? Would the jus- 
tice of our opposition have been considered? The 
most horrid forfeitures, confiscations, and attain- 
ders, would have been pronounced against us. 
Consider their history, from the time of William 
the First till this day. Were not his Normans 
gratified with the confiscation of the richest es- 
tates in England? Read the excessive cruelties, 
attainders and confiscations of that reign. Eng- 
land depopulated, its inhabitants stripped of the 
dearest privileges of humanity, degraded with 
the most ignominious badges of bondage, and to- 
tally deprived of the power of resistance to usur- 
pation and tyranny. This inability continued to 
the time of Henry the Eighth. In his reign, the 
business of confiscation and attainder made con- 
siderable havoc. After his reign, some stop was 
put to the effusion of blood which preceded and 
happened under it. Recollect the sad and lam- 
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entable effects of the York and Lancastrian wars. 
Remember the rancorous hatred and inveterate det- 
estations of contending factions, the distinction 
of white and red roses. To come a little lower: 
what happened in that island in the rebellions of 
1715 and 1745? If we had been conquered, 
would not our men have shared the fate of the 
people of Ireland? A great part of that island 
was confiscated, though the Irish people thought 
themselves engaged in a laudable cause. What 
confiscation and punishments were inflicted in 
Scotland? The plains of CuUoden, and the neigh- 
boring gibbets would show you. I thank heaven 
that the spirit of liberty, under the protection of 
the Almighty, saved us from experiencing so hard 
a destiny. But had we been subdued, would not 
every right have been wrested from us? What 
right would have been saved? Would debts have 
been saved? Would it not be absurd to save 
debts while they should bum, hang and destroy? 

Before we can decide with precision, we are to 
consider the dangers we should have been exposed 
to had we been subdued. After presenting to 
your view this true picture of what would have 
been our situation, had we been subjugated, 
surely a correspondent right will be found, grow- 
ing out of the law of nations, in our favor. Had 
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our subjugation been effected, and we pleaded 
for pardon — represented that we defended the 
most valuable rights of human nature, and 
thought they were wrong — would our petition 
have availed? I feel myself impelled, from what 
has passed, to ask this question. I would not 
wished to have lived to see the sad scenes we should 
have experienced. Needy avarice and savage cru- 
elty would have had full scope. Hungry Germans, 
blood-thirsty Indians, and nations of another 
color would have been let loose upon us. The 
sad effects of such warfare have had their full in- 
fluence on a number of our fellow-citizens. Sir, 
if you had seen the sad scenes which I have known ; 
if you had seen the simple but tranquil felicity 
of helpless and unoffending women and children, 
in little log huts on the frontiers, disturbed and 
destroyed by the sad effects of British warfare 
and Indian butchery, your soul would have been 
struck with horror [ Even those helpless women 
and children were the objects of the most shock- 
ing barbarity. 

If it be allowed to the British nation to put to 
death, to forfeit and confiscate debts and every 
thing else, may we not (having an equal right) 
confiscate — not life, for we never desire it — but 
that which is the common object of confiscation: 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

property, goods, and debts, which strengthen 
ourselves and weaken our enemies? I trust that 
this short recapitulation of events shows that, if 
there ever was in the history of man a case re- 
quiring the full use of all human means, it was 
our case in the last contest; and we were, there- 
fore, warranted to confiscate the British debts. 

THE STRENUOUS LIFE 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United 
States, was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. His 
literary style is excellent, being clear, simple, and forceful, 
and his delivery, while lacking in oratorical grace, is strong 
and convincing. He has the faculty of getting to the root 
of the matter under discussion, making his meaning clear, 
and impressing his convictions on his listeners. His person- 
ality is reflected in his speeches, which possess to a marked 
degree the main requisite of an oration — action. The fol- 
lowing extract is from a speech delivered at Chicago, April 
10, 1899. 

IN speaking to you,' men of the greatest city of 
the West, men of the State which gave to the 
country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently 
and distinctly embody all that is most American 
in the American character, I wish to preach, not 
the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of 
the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of 
labor and strife; to preach that highest form 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

of success which comes, not to the man who desires 
mere easy peace, but to the man who does not 
shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter 
toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ulti- 
mate triumph. 

A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which 
springs merely from lack either of desire or of 
power to strive after great things, is as little 
worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask 
only that what every self-respecting American 
demands from himself and from his sons shall 
be demanded of the American nation as a whole. 
Who among you would teach your boys that ease, 
that peace is to be the first consideration in their 
eyes — to be the ultimate goal after which they 
strive ? 

You men of Chicago have made this city great, 
you men of Illinois have done your share, and 
more than your share, in making America great, 
because you neither preach nor practise such a 
doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up 
your sons to work. If you are rich and are worth 
your salt, you will teach your sons that though 
they may have leisure it is not to be spent in idle- 
ness ; for wisely used leisure merely means that 
those who possess it, being free from the necessity 
of working for their livelihood, are all the more 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative 
work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, 
in historical research — work of the type we most 
need in this country, the successful carrying out 
of which reflects most honor upon the nation. 

We do not admire the man of timid peace. We 
admire the man who embodies victorious efforts, 
the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is 
prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile 
qualities necessary to win in the stem strife of ac- 
tual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to 
have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing 
save by effort. Freedom from effort in the pres- 
ent merely means that there has been stored up 
effort in the past. A man can be freed from the 
necessity of work only by the fact that he or his 
fathers before him have worked to good purpose. 
If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and 
the man still does actual work, though of a differ- 
ent kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether 
in the field of politics or in the field of exploration 
and adventure, he shows he deserves his good 
fortune. 

But if he treats this period of freedom from the 
need of actual labor as a period not of prepara- 
tion, but of mere enjoyment, even though perhaps 
not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

simply a cumberer on the earth's surface; and he 
surely unfits himself to hold his own with his fel- 
lows, if the need to do so should again arise. A 
mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfac- 
tory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately 
unfits those who follow it for serious work in the 
world. 

As it is with the individual, so it is with the na- 
tion. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the 
nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the 
nation that has a glorious history. Far better is 
it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, 
even though checkered by failure, than to take 
rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy 
much nor suffer much, because they live in the 
gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. 
If, in 1861, the men who loved the Union had be- 
lieved that peace was at the end of all things, and 
war and strife the worst of all things, and had 
acted up to their belief, we would have saved hun- 
dreds of thousands of lives; we would have saved 
hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, be- 
sides saving all the blood and treasure we then 
lavished we would have prevented the heartbreak 
of many women, the dissolution of many homes, and 
we would have spared the country those months of 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

gloom and shame, when it seemed as if our armies 
marched only to defeat. 

We could have avoided all this suffering simply 
by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus 
avoided it, we would have shown that we were weak- 
lings, and that we were unfit to stand among the 
great nations of the earth. Thank God, for the 
iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who up- 
held the wisdom of Lincoln and bore sword or rifle 
in the armies of Grant. 

Let us, the children of the men who proved them- 
selves equal to the mighty days — let us, the chil- 
dren of the men who carried the great civil war 
to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our 
fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were 
rejected; that the suff^ering and loss, the blackness 
of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, 
and the years of strife endured, for in the end the 
slave was free, the Union restored, and the mighty 
American Republic placed once more as a hel- 
meted queen among nations. 



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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
BOOKS 

' RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous essayist, poet, and lecturer, 
was born in Boston, Mass., May 25, 1803, and died in Con- 
cord, Mass., April 27, 1882. The following extract is from 
" The American Scholar," an oration delivered at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., August 31, 1837. 

THE theory of books is noble. The scholar of 
the first age received into him the world 
around ; brooded thereon ; gave it the new arrange- 
ment of his own mind and uttered it again. It 
came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. 
It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out 
from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, 
business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead 
fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand and 
it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now 
inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of 
mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so 
long does it sing. 

Or, I might say, it depends on how far the 
process had gone, of transmuting life into truth. 
In proportion to the completeness of the distilla- 
tion, so will the purity and imperishableness of 
the product be. But none is quite perfect. As no 
air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

so neither can any artist entirely exclude the con- 
ventional, the local, the perishable from his book, 
or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as 
efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as 
to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. 
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; 
or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. 
The books of an older period will not fit this. 

Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacred- 
ness which attaches to the act of creation, — the act 
of thought, — is transferred to the record. The 
poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man ; hence- 
forth the chant is divine also. The writer was a 
just and wise spirit: henceforward it is settled, the 
book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into 
worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes 
noxious : the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and 
perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to 
the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, 
having once received this book, stands upon it and 
makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are 
built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, 
not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, 
who start wrong, who set out from accepted 
dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. 
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it 
their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that 
Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in 
libraries when they wrote these books. 

Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the 
bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class who 
value books, as such; not as related to nature and 
the human constitution, but as making a sort of 
Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, 
the restorers of readings, the emendators, the 
bibliomaniacs of all degrees. 

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, 
among the worst. What is the right use.^^ What 
is the one end, which all means go to effect? They 
are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never 
see a book than to be warped by its attraction 
clean out of my own orbit and made a satellite in- 
stead of a system. The one thing in the world of 
value is the active soul. This every man is en- 
titled to ; this every man contains within him, al- 
though, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet 
unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and 
utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is 
genius ; not the privilege of here and there a favor- 
ite, but the sound estate of every man. In its es- 
sence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the 
school of art, the institution of any kind, stop 
with some past utterance of genius. This is good, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me 
down. They look backward and not forward. 
But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set 
in his forehead, not in his hindhead; man hopes, 
genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the 
man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not 
his ; cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet 
flame. There are created manners, there are cre- 
ated actions, and created words ; manners, actions, 
words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, 
but springing spontaneous from the mind's own 
sense of good and fair. 

On the other part, instead of being its own seer, 
let it receive from another mind its truth, though it 
were in torrents of light, without periods of sol- 
itude, inquest, and self -recovery, and a fatal dis- 
service is done. Genius is always sufficiently the 
enemy of genius by over-influence. The literature 
of every nation bears me witness. The English 
dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two 
hundred years. 

Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, 
so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking 
must not be subdued by his instruments. Books 
are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read 
God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted 
in other men's transcripts of their readings. But 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

when the intervals of darkness come, as come they 
must, — when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw 
their shining, — we repair to the lamps which were 
kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East 
again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may 
speak. The Arabian proverb says, " A fig-tree, 
looking on a fig-tree, becomes fruitful." 

INDUSTRY NECESSARY TO THE AT- 
TAINMENT OF ELOQUENCE 

HENEY WARE 

Henry Ware, Unitarian clergyman, and professor of pul- 
pit eloquence in the Divinity School of Harvard University, 
was born in Hingham, Mass., April 21, 1794, and died in 
Framingham, Mass., September 22, 1843. 

THE history of the world is full of testimony 
to prove how much depends upon industry ; 
not an eminent orator has lived but is an example 
of it. Yet, in contradiction to all this, the almost 
universal feeling appears to be, that industry can 
effect nothing, that eminence is the result of acci- 
dent, and that every one must be content to remain 
just what he may happen to be. Thus multitudes, 
who come forward as teachers and guides, suffer 
themselves to be satisfied with the most indifferent 
attainments, and a miserable mediocrity, without 
so much as inquiring how they may rise higher, 
much less making any attempt to rise. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

For any other art they would have served an 
apprenticeship, and would be ashamed to prac- 
tise it in public before they had learned it. If 
any one would sing, he attends a master, and is 
drilled in the very elementary principles ; and only 
after the most laborious process, dares to exercise 
his voice in public. This he does, though he has 
scarcely anything to learn but the mechanical exe- 
cution of what lies in sensible forms before the eye. 
But the extempore speaker, who is to invent as well 
as to utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as 
well as to produce sound, enters upon the work 
without preparatory discipline, and then wonders 
that he fails ! 

If he were learning to play on the flute for public 
exhibition, what hours and days would he spend in 
giving facility to his fingers, and attaining the 
power of the sweetest and most expressive execu- 
tion! If he were devoting himself to the organ, 
what months and years would he labor, that he 
might know its compass, and be master of its keys, 
and be able to draw out, at will, all its various com- 
binations of harmonious sounds, and its full rich- 
ness and delicacy of expression! And yet he will 
fancy that the grandest, the most varied and most 
expressive of all instruments, which the infinite crea- 
tor has fashioned by the union of an intellectual 
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soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon 
without study or practice; he comes to it a mere 
uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its 
stops, and command the whole compass of its varied 
and comprehensive power! He finds himself a 
bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, 
and settles it in his mind forever, that the attempt 
is vain. 

Success in every art, whatever may be the natural 
talent, is always the reward of industry and pains. 
But the instances are many, of men of the finest 
natural genius, whose beginning has promised 
much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they 
advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and 
made no efforts to improve. That there have never 
been other men of equal endowments with Demos- 
thenes and Cicero, none would venture to suppose ; 
but who have so devoted themselves to their art, 
or become equal in excellence .f* If those great men 
had been content, like others, to continue as they be- 
gan, and had never made their persevering efforts 
for improvement, what would their countries have 
benefited from their genius, or the world have 
known of their fame? They would have been lost 
in the undistinguished crowd that sunk to oblivion 
around them. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
IDOLS 

WENDELL PHILLIPS 

Wendell Phillips, lawyer, orator, and abolitionist, was 
born in Boston, Mass., November 29, 1811, and died in the 
same city February 2, 1884. He was a strong and beautiful 
writer and a powerful speaker, but very set and uncom- 
promising in his opinions. He deemed his views right and 
had no patience with those who disagreed with him, and 
was willing to lose all rather than recede from the ground 
he had taken and meet his opponents on a common basis 
of mutual forbearance and compromise. He considered the 
United States Constitution the safeguard of slavery, and, 
before the breaking out of the Civil War, advised a division 
of the States in order to permit the free States to repudiate 
slavery in every manner, shape, and form. He loved his 
conception of liberty more than he did his united country 
and was willing to destroy the latter in order to carry out 
the former. He was of that party in the North which 
would destroy the Union rather than that slavery should 
exist, just as Robert Toombs was of that other party in 
the South which would destroy the Union rather than see 
slavery perish. These two extremists dragged their sections 
with them and precipitated the titanic struggle between the 
States of the Union. When, however, it became apparent 
that the success of the Federal arms meant the death of 
slavery, Phillips ceased his efforts towards a dissolution of 
the Union and gave the cause of the North his undivided 
support. As a lecturer he was highly successful, and his 
beautiful discourse, " The Lost Arts," is a living monument 
to his fame. He was earnest and sincere in all his under- 
takings, and stands to-day as one of the strong figures of the 
stirring times leading up to the Civil War. He possessed a 
wonderfully sweet, clear, ringing voice of great power, his 
modulation was beautiful and his general delivery excellent. 
In fact, he was one of the greatest orators of modern times, 
and a man who exerted tremendous power over the men and 
questions of his age. 

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TT is a grave thing when a State puts a man 
-*■ among her jewels, the glitter of whose fame 
makes doubtful acts look heroic. The honors we 
grant mark how high we stand, and they educate 
the future. The men we honor and the maxims 
we lay down in measuring our favorites, show the 
level and morals of the time. A name has been 
in every one's mouth of late, and men have ex- 
hausted language in trying to express their ad- 
miration and respect. The courts have covered 
the grave of Mr. Choate with eulogy. Let us see 
what is their idea of a great lawyer. We are told 
that " he worked hard," " he never neglected his 
client," " he flung over the discussions of the 
forum the grace of a rare scholarship," " No 
pressure or emergency ever stirred him to an un- 
kind word." A ripe scholar, a profound lawyer, a 
faithful servant of his client, a gentleman. This is 
a good record surely. May he sleep in peace. 
What he earned, God grant he may have. But 
the bar that seeks to claim for such a one a place 
among great jurists must itself be weak indeed. 
Not one high moral trait specified; not one pa- 
triotic act mentioned; not one patriotic service 
even claimed. Look at Mr. Webster's idea of 
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what a lawyer should be in order to be called great, 
in the sketch he drew of Jeremiah Mason, and no- 
tice what stress he lays upon the religious and 
moral elevation, and the glorious and high pur- 
poses which crown his hf e. Nothing of this now ; 
nothing but incessant eulogy. But not a word of 
one effort to lift the yoke of cruel or unequal legis- 
lation from the neck of its victim ; not one attempt 
to make the code of his country wiser, purer, better ; 
not one effort to bless his times or breathe a higher 
moral purpose into the community. Not one blow 
struck for right or for liberty, while the battle 
of the giants was going on about him ; not one pa- 
triotic act to stir the hearts of his idolaters; not 
one public act of any kind whatever about whose 
merit friend or foe could even quarrel, unless when 
he scouted our great charter as a ghttering gener- 
ahty, or jeered at the philanthropy which tried to 
practise the Sermon on the Mount. 

When Cordus, the Roman Senator, whom Tibe- 
rius murdered, was addressing his fellows he began, 
" Fathers, they accuse me of illegal words ; plain 
proof that there are no illegal deeds with which to 
charge me." So with those eulogies. Words, 
nothing but words ; plain proof that there were no 
deeds to praise. Yet this is the model which 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Massachusetts offers to the Pantheon of the great 
jurists of the world! 

Suppose we stood in that lofty temple of juris- 
prudence, — on either side of us the statues of the 
great lawyers of every age and clime, — and let us 
see what part New England — Puritan, educated, 
free New England — would bear in the pageant. 

Rome points to a colossal figure and says, 
" That is Papinian, who, when the Emperor Cara- 
cella murdered liis own brother, and ordered the 
lawyer to defend the deed, went cheerfully to 
death, rather than sully his lips with the atrocious 
plea; and that Ulpian, who, aiding his prince to 
put the army below the law, was massacred at the 
foot of a weak but virtuous throne." 

And France stretches forth her grateful hands, 
crying " That is D'Aguesseau, worthy, when he 
went to face an enraged King, of the farewell his 
wife addressed him : * Go, forget that you have 
a wife and children, to ruin, and remember only 
that you have France to save.' " 

England says, " That is Coke, who flung the 
laurels of eighty years in the face of the first Stu- 
art, in defence of the people. This is Selden on 
every book of whose library you saw written the 
motto of which he lived worthy, ' Before every- 
thing liberty ! ' That is Mansfield, silver-tongued, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

who proclaimed, ' Slaves cannot breathe in Eng- 
land; if their lungs receive our air, that moment 
the J are free.' 

" This is Romily, who spent life trying to 
make law synonymous with justice, and succeeded 
in making life and property safer in every city of 
the empire. And that is Erskine, whose eloquence, 
spite of Lord Eldon and George the Third, made it 
safe to speak and print." 

Then New England shouts, " This is Choate, 
who made it safe to murder, and of whose health 
thieves asked before they began to steal ! " ^ 

ORATION ON THE CENTENNIAL OF THE 
BIRTH OF O'CONNELL 

WENDELL PHILLIPS 

I DO not think I exaggerate when I say that 
never, since God made Demosthenes, has He 
made a man better fitted for a great work than He 
did O'Connell. 

^ Judge Benjamin R. Curtis said in his address at the meeting 
of the Boston har held just after the death of Rufus Choate : "I 
desire, therefore, on this occasion and in this presence, to declare 
our appreciation of the injustice which would be done to this 
great and eloquent advocate by attributing to him any want of 
loyalty to truth, or any deference to wrong, because he employed 
all his great powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his 
consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and enforcing the 
comparative merits of one side of the cases in which he acted. 
In doing so he but did his duty. If other people did theirs, the 
administration, of justice was secured." 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

You may say that I am partial to my hero; 
but John Randolph of Roanoke, who hated an 
Irishman almost as much as he did a Yankee, when 
he got to London and heard O'Connell, the old 
slaveholder threw up his hands and exclaimed, 
" This is the man, those are the lips, the most elo- 
quent that speak English in my day," and I think 
he was right. 

Webster could address a bench of judges ; 
Everett could charm a college; Choate could de- 
lude a jury; Clay could magnetize a senate, and 
Tom Corwin could hold the mob in his right hand, 
but no one of these men could do more than this 
one thing. The wonder about O'Connell was that 
he could out-talk Corwin, he could charm a col- 
lege better than Everett, and leave Henry Clay 
himself far behind in magnetizing a senate. 

It has been my privilege to have heard all the 
great orators of America who have become singu- 
larly famed about the world's circumference. I 
know what was the majesty of Webster; I know 
what it was to melt under the magnetism of Henry 
Clay; I have seen eloquence in the iron logic of 
Calhoun, but all three of these men never sur- 
passed and no one of them ever equalled the great 
Irishman. I have hitherto been speaking of his 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

ability and success, I will now consider his char- 
acter. 

To show you that he never took a leaf from our 
American gospel of compromise, that he never filed 
his tongue to silence on one truth fancying so to 
help another, let me compare him to Kossuth, 
whose only merits were his eloquence and his pa- 
triotism. When Kossuth was in Faneuil Hall he 
exclaimed, " Here is a flag without a stain, a na- 
tion without a crime." We Abolitionists appealed 
to him, " O eloquent son of the Magyar, come to 
break chains, have you no word, no pulse-beat for 
four millions of negroes bending under a yoke ten 
times heavier than that of Hungary .f^" He ex- 
claimed, " I would forget anybody, I would praise 
anything, to help Hungary." O'Connell never 
said anything like that. 

When I was in Naples I asked Sir Thomas Fowell 
Buxton, "Is Daniel O'Connell an honest man.?" 
" As honest a man as ever breathed," said he, and 
then he told me the following story : " When, in 
1830, O'Connell first entered Parliament, the anti- 
slavery cause was so weak that it had only Lush- 
ington and myself to speak for it, and we agreed 
that when he spoke I should cheer him up, and 
when I spoke he should cheer me, and these were 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the only cheers we ever got. O'Connell came with 
one Irish member to support him. A large party 
of members [I think Buxton said twenty-seven] 
whom we called the West India interest, the Bristol 
party, the slave party, went to him, saying, 
' O'Connell, at last you are in the House with one 
helper — if you will never go down to Freemason's 
Hall with Buxton and Brougham, here are twenty- 
seven votes for you on every Irish question. If 
you work with those Abolitionists, count us always 
against you.' " 

It was a terrible temptation. How many a so- 
called statesman would have yielded! O'Connell 
said, " Gentlemen, God knows I speak for the sad- 
dest people the sun sees ; but may my right hand 
forget its cunning and my tongue cling to the roof 
of my mouth, if to help Ireland — even Ireland — 
I forget the negro one single hour." 

" From that day," said Buxton, " Lushington 
and I never went into the lobby that O'Connell did 
not follow us." 

And then besides his irreproachable character, 
he had what is half the power of a popular orator, 
he had a majestic presence. In youth he had the 
brow of a Jupiter or Jove, and the stature of 
ApoUo. A little O'Connell would have been no 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

O'Connell at all. Sidney Smith says of Lord 
John Russell's five feet, when he went down to 
Yorkshire after the Reform Bill had passed, the 
stalwart hunters of Yorkshire exclaimed, " What, 
that little shrimp, he carry the Reform Bill 1 " 
" No, no," said Smith, " He was a large man, but 
the labors of the bill shrunk him." You remem- 
ber the story that Russell Lowell tells of Webster 
when we in Massachusetts were about to break up 
the Whig party. Webster came home to Faneuil 
Hall to protest, and four thousand Whigs came 
out to meet him. He lifted up his majestic pres- 
ence before that sea of human faces, his brow 
charged with thunder and said, " Gentlemen, I am 
a Whig; a Massachusetts Whig; a Revolutionary 
Whig; a Constitutional Whig; a Faneuil Hall 
Whig ; and if you break up the Whig party, where 
am / to go ? " And, says Lowell, " we all held our 
breath, thinking where he could go." " But," 
says Lowell, " if he had been five feet three, we 
should have said, confound you, who do you sup- 
pose cares where you go? " Well, O'Connell had 
all that, and then he had what Webster never had, 
and what Clay had, the magnetism and grace that 
melts a million souls into his. 

When I saw him he was sixty-five, lithe as a boy. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

His every attitude was beauty, his every gesture 
grace. Why, Macready or Booth never equalled 
him. 

It would have been a pleasure to look at him if 
he had not spoken at all, and all you thought of 
was a greyhound. And then he had, what so 
few American speakers have, a voice that sounded 
the gamut. I heard him once in Exeter Hall say, 
" Americans, I send my voice careering like the 
thunder storm across the Atlantic, to tell South 
Carolina that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to 
remind the negro that the dawn of his redemp- 
tion is drawing near," and I seemed to hear his 
voice reverberating and re-echoing back to London 
from the Rocky Mountains. 

And then, with the slightest possible flavor of 
an Irish brogue, he would tell a story that would 
make all Exeter Hall laugh, and the next moment 
there were tears in his voice, like an old song, and 
five thousand men would be in tears. And all 
the while no effort — he seemed only breathing. 

" As effortless as woodland nooks 
Send violets up and paint them blue.'* 



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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE PERMANENCY OF EMPIRE 

WENDELIi PHILLIPS 

I APPEAL to history ! Tell me, thou reverend 
chronicler of the grave, can all the wealth of 
a universal commerce, can all the achievements of 
successful heroisms, or all the estabhshments of 
this world's wisdom, secure to empire the per- 
manency of its possessions ? Alas ! Troy thought 
so once ; yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! 
Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates 
have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the 
dust they were vainly intended to commemorate. 
So thought Palmyra — where is she ? So thought 
the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan ; yet 
Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens 
insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ot- 
toman. In his hurried march, time has but looked 
at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, 
from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, 
erased the very impression of his footsteps. The 
days of their glory are as if they had never been ; 
and the island that was then a speck, rude and 
neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiq- 
uity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, 
the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

their Senate, and the inspiration of their bards. 
Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that 
England, proud and potent as she appears, may 
not, one day, be what Athens is, and the young 
America yet soar to be what Athens was ! Who 
shall say that, when the European column shall 
have mouldered, and the night of barbarism ob- 
scured its very ruins, that mighty continent may 
not emerge from the horizon to rule, for its time, 
sovereign of the ascendant ! 

THE PRESENT AGE 

WILUAM ELLERY CHANNING 

William Ellery Channing, an eminent theologian, and one 
of the founders of American Unitarianism, was born in 
Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780, and died in Bennington, Ver- 
mont, October 2, 1842. 

THE grand idea of humanity, of the impor- 
tance of man as man, is spreading silently, 
but surely. Even the most abject portions of so- 
ciety are visited by some dreams of a better con- 
dition for which they were designed. The grand 
doctrine, that every human being should have the 
means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge 
and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of 
exercising the powers and affections of a man, this 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Is slowly taking its place as the highest social 
truth. That the world was made for all, and not 
for a few; that society is to care for all; that no 
human being shall perish but through his own 
fault; that the great end of government is to 
spread a shield over the rights of all, — these prop- 
ositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit 
of them is coming forth in all the departments of 
hfe. 

The Present Age! In these brief words what 
a world of thought is comprehended! What in- 
finite movements, what joys and sorrows, what 
hope and despair, what faith and doubts, what 
silent grief and loud lament, what fierce conflicts 
and subtile schemes of policy, what private and 
public revolutions ! In the period through which 
many of us have passed what thrones have been 
shaken, what hearts have bled, what millions have 
been butchered by their fellow-creatures, what 
hopes of philanthropy have been blighted! And 
at the same time what magnificent enterprises have 
been achieved, what new provinces won to science 
and art, what rights and liberties secured to na- 
tions 1 It is a privilege to have lived in an age so 
stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is an age 
never to be forgotten. Its voice of warning and 
encouragement is never to die. Its impression on 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

history is indelible. Amidst its events, the Amer- 
ican Revolution, the first distinct, solemn assertion 
of the rights of men, and the French Revolution, 
that volcanic force which shook the earth to its 
centre, are never to pass from men's minds. Over 
this age the night will indeed gather more and 
more as time rolls away; but in that night two 
forms will appear. Napoleon and Washington, the 
one a lurid meteor, the other a benign, serene, and 
undecaying star. Another American name will 
live in history, your Franklin; and the kite which 
brought lightning from heaven will be seen sailing 
in the clouds by remote posterity, when the city 
where he dwelt may be known only by its ruins. 
There is, however, something greater in the age 
than in its greatest men; it is the appearance of 
a new power in the world, the appearance of the 
multitude of men on that stage where as yet the 
few have acted their parts alone. This influence 
is to endure to the end of time. What more of 
the present is to survive ? Perhaps much, of which 
we now take no note. The glory of an age is 
often hidden from itself. Perhaps some word has 
been spoken in our day which we have not deigned 
to hear, but which is to grow clearer and louder 
through all ages. Perhaps some silent thinker 
among us is at work in his closet whose name is to 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

fill the earth. Perhaps there sleeps in his cradle 
some reformer who is to move the church and the 
world, who is to open a new era in history, who is 
to fire the human soul with new hope and new 
daring. What else is to survive the age? That 
which the age has little thought of, but which is 
living in us all; I mean the Soul, the Immortal 
Spirit. Of this all ages are the unfoldings, and 
it is greater than all. We must not feel, in the 
contemplation of the vast movements of our own 
and former times, as if we ourselves were nothing. 
I repeat it, we are greater than all. We are to 
survive our age, to comprehend it, and to pro- 
nounce its sentence. And yet, however, we are en- 
compassed with darkness. The issues of our time,, 
how obscure 1 The future into which it opens,, 
who of us can foresee? To the Father of all 
Ages I commit this future with humble, yet cour- 
ageous and unfaltering hope. 

EDUCATION IN A REPUBLIC 

JUDAH PHILIP BENJAMIN 

Judah Philip Benjamin, lawyer and statesman,, was born 
in St. Croix, West Indies, August 11, 1811, and died in 
Paris, France, May 8, 1884. His speeches show him to have 
been a learned man, and as an advocate and a public speaker 
he achieved pronounced success. As a lawyer, both in 
America and England, he stood in the front rank of his 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

profession. His parents, who were English Jews, emigrated 
to the United States when Benjamin was an infant, and he 
passed his boyhood at Wilmington, N. C. He served two 
terms in the United States Senate as a Senator from Louisi- 
ana, and when his State seceded, he resigned his seat in the 
United States Senate, and became successively Attorney- 
General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State of the 
Confederacy. At the close of the Civil War he made his 
home in England, was admitted to practise at the English 
Bar, and rose to eminence. 

RECREANT indeed should we prove to the 
duty we owe to our country, unworthy in- 
deed should we be of the glorious heritage of our 
fathers, if the counsels of Washington fell disre- 
garded on our ears. 

But if that great man had so decided a con- 
viction of the absolute necessity of diffusing 
intelligence amongst the people in his day, how 
unspeakably urgent has that necessity become in 
ours ! In the first attempts then made to organize 
our institutions on republican principles the most 
careful and guarded measures were adopted in 
order to confine the powers of the government to 
the hands of those whose virtue and intelligence 
best fitted them for the exercise of such exalted 
duties. The population of the country was 
sparse ; the men then living had witnessed the revo- 
lution that secured our independence ; its din was 
still ringing in our ears, they had purchased lib- 
erty with blood, and dearly did they cherish, and 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

watchfully did they guard, the costly treasure ; the 
noblest band of patriots that ever wielded sword 
or pen in freedom's holy cause, were still amongst 
them, shining lights, guiding by their example and 
instructing by their counsels, to which eminent 
public services gave added weight. Now, alas ! 
the latest survivor of that noble band has passed 
away. Their light has ceased to shine on our 
path. The population that then scarce reached 
three millions, now numbers twenty ; and the steady 
and irresistible march of public opinion constantly 
operating in the infusion of a greater and still 
greater proportion of the popular element into our 
institutions, has at length reached the point beyond 
which it can no farther go ; and from the utmost 
limits of the frozen North to the sunny clime of 
Louisiana, from the shores washed by the stormy 
Atlantic to the extreme verge of the flowery 
prairies of the far West, there scarce breathes an 
American citizen, who is not, in the fullest and 
broadest acceptation of the word, one of the rulers 
of his country. Imagination shrinks from the con- 
templation of the mighty power for weal or for 
woe possessed by these vast masses of men. If 
swayed by impulse, passion, or prejudice to do 
wrong, no mind can conceive, no pen portray, the 
scenes of misery and desolation that must ensue. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

But if elevated and purified by the beneficent influ- 
ence of our free public education, if taught from 
infancy the lessons of patriotism and devotion to 
their country's good, if so instructed as to be able 
to appreciate and to spurn the counsels of those 
who in every age have been ready to flatter man's 
worst passions and to pander to his most degraded 
appetites for purposes of self-aggrandizement — 
if, in a word, trained in the school and imbued with 
the principles of our Washington, the most ex- 
travagant visions of fancy must fall short of pic- 
turing the vivid colors of the future that is open 
before us. The page of history will furnish no 
parallel to our grandeur; and the great republic 
of the Western world, extending the blessings of 
freedom in this hemisphere and acting by its exam- 
ple in the other, will reach the proudest pinnacle 
of power and of greatness to which human efforts 
can aspire. And for the attainment of this auspi- 
cious result, how simple, yet how mighty, the en- 
gine which alone is required ! — a universal diffu- 
sion of intelligence amongst the people by a boun- 
teous system of free public education. 



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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA 

GEORGE F. HOAR 

From an address delivered at the Banquet of the New 
England Society at Charleston^ S. C, December 22^ 
1898. 

I NEED not assure this brilliant company how 
deeply I am impressed by the significance of 
this occasion. I am not vain enough to find in it 
anything of personal compliment. I like better to 
believe that the ties of common history, of common 
faith, of common citizenship, and inseparable des- 
tiny, are drawing our two sister States together 
again. If cordial friendship, if warm afi*ection 
(to use no stronger term), can ever exist between 
two communities they should exist between Massa- 
chusetts and South Carolina. They were both of 
the " Old Thirteen." They were alike in the cir- 
cumstances of their origin. Both were settled by 
those noble fugitives who brought the torch of 
liberty across the sea, when liberty was without 
other refuge on the face of the earth. The Eng- 
lish Pilgrims and Puritans founded Massachusetts, 
to be followed soon after by the Huguenot exiles 
who fled from the tyranny of King Louis XIV, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 
Scotch Presbyterianism founded Carolina, to be 
followed soon after by the French exiles fleeing 
from the same oppression. Everywhere in New 
England are traces of the footsteps of this gentle, 
delightful, and chivalrous race. All over our six 
States to-day many an honored grave, many a stir- 
ring tradition bear witness to the kinship between 
our early settlers and the settlers of South Caro- 
lina. Faneuil Hall, Boston, which we love to call 
the " Cradle of Liberty," attests the munificence 
and bears the name of an illustrious Huguenot. 

These French exiles lent their grace and ro- 
mance to our history also. Their settlements were 
like clusters of magnolias in some warm valley in 
our bleak New England. 

We are, all of us, in Massachusetts, reading 
again the story of the voyage of the " Mayflower," 
written by William Bradford. As you have heard, 
that precious manuscript has lately been restored 
to us by the kindness of His Grace the Lord Bishop 
of London. It is in the eyes of the children of the 
Pilgrims the most precious manuscript on earth. 
If there be anything to match the pathos of that 
terrible voyage it is found in the story of Judith 
Manigault, the French Huguenot exile, of her 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

nine months' voyage from England to South Caro- 
lina. Her name, I am told, has been honored here 
in every generation since. 

If there be a single lesson which the people of 
this country have learned from their wonderful and 
crowded history it is that the North and South are 
indispensable to each other. They are the blades 
of mighty shears, worthless apart, but when bound 
by an indissoluble union, powerful, irresistible, and 
terrible as the shears of fate ; like the shears of 
Atropos, severing every thread and tangled web of 
evil, cutting out for humanity its beautiful gar- 
ments of liberty and light from the cloth her dread 
sisters spin and weave. 

I always delight to think, as I know the people 
of South Carolina delight to think, of these States 
of ours, not as mere aggregations of individuals, 
but as beautiful personalities, moral beings, en- 
dowed with moral characters, capable of faith, of 
hope, or memory, of pride, of sorrow, and of joy, 
of courage, of heroism, of honor, and of shame. 
Certainly this is true of them. Their power and 
glory, their rightful place in history, depended on 
these things, and not on numbers or extent of ter- 
ritory. 

It is this that justifies the arrangement of the 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Constitution of the United States for equal repre- 
sentation of States in the upper legislative chamber 
and explains its admirable success. 

The separate entity and the absolute freedom, 
except for the necessary restraints of the consti- 
tution of our different States, is the cause alike 
of the greatness and the security of our country. 

The words Switzerland, France, England, Rome, 
Athens, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia, 
America, convey to your mind a distinct and in- 
dividual meaning and suggest an image of dis- 
tinct moral quality and moral being as clearly as 
do the words Washington, Wellington, or Na- 
poleon. I believe it is, and I thank God that I 
believe it is, something much higher than the aver- 
age of the qualities of the men who make it up. 
We think of Switzerland as something better than 
the individual Swiss, and of France as something 
better than the individual Frenchman, and of 
America as something better than the individual 
American. In great and heroic individual actions 
we often seem to feel that it is the country, of 
which the man is but the instrument that gives 
expression to its quality in doing the deed. 

It was Switzerland who gathered into her breast 
at Sempach the sheaf of fatal Austrian spears. 
It was the hereditary spirit of New England that 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

gave the word of command by the voice of But- 
trick, at Concord, and was in the bosom of Parker 
at Lexington. It was South CaroHna whose 
hghtning stroke smote the invader by the arm of 
Marion and whose wisdom guided the framers of 
the Constitution through the Hps of Rutledge and 
Gadsden and Pinckney. 

The citizen on great occasions knows and obeys 
the voice of his country as he knows and obeys an 
individual voice, whether it appeal to a base or 
ignoble or to a generous or noble passion. " Sons 
of France, awake to glory," told the French youth 
what was the dominant passion in the bosom of 
France and it awoke a corresponding sentiment in 
his own. Under its spell he marched through 
Europe and overthrew her kingdoms and empires 
and felt in Egypt that forty centuries were look- 
ing down on him from the Pyramids. But at last, 
one June morning in Trafalgar Bay, there was 
another utterance, more quiet in its tone, but 
speaking also with a personal and individual voice, 
" England expects every man to do his duty." 

At the sight of Nelson's immortal signal, duty- 
loving England and glory-loving France met as 
they have met on many an historic battlefield be- 
fore and since, and the lover of duty proved the 
stronger. The England that expected every man 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to do his duty was as real a being to the humblest 
sailor in Nelson's fleet as the mother that bore him. 

The title of our American States to their equal- 
ity under this admirable arrangement depends not 
on area or upon numbers but upon character and 
upon personality. Fancy a league or a confed- 
eracy in which Athens or Sparta were united with 
Persia or Babylon or Nineveh and their political 
power were to be reckoned in proportion to their 
numbers or their size. 

I have sometimes fancied South Carolina and 
Massachusetts, those two illustrious and heroic 
sisters, instead of sitting apart, one under her 
palm trees and the other under her pines, one with 
the hot gales from the tropics fanning her brow 
and the other on the granite rocks by her ice- 
bound shores, meeting together and comparing 
notes and stories as sisters born of the same mother 
compare notes and stories after a long separation. 
How the old estrangements, bom of ignorance of 
each other, would have melted away. 

GENIUS 

ORVILLE DEWEY 

Orville Dewey, minister, lecturer, and writer, was born in 

Sheffield, Mass., March 28, 1794, and died there March 21, 

1882. His diction is refined, rich, and ennobling, and as a 

speaker he was successful both in the pulpit and on the 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

platform. His thoughts are beautifully expressed by words 
that flow freely, and convey the meaning instantly and 
clearly. 

THE favorite idea of a genius among us, is 
of one who never studies, or who studies, no- 
body can tell when — at midnight, or at odd times 
and intervals — and now and then strikes out, at 
a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful produc- 
tion. This is a character that has figured largely 
in the history of our literature, in the persons of 
our Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles — 
" Loose fellows about town," or loungers in the 
country, who slept in ale-houses and wrote in bar- 
rooms, who took up the pen as a magician's wand 
to supply their wants, and when the pressure of 
necessity was relieved, resorted again to their 
carousals. 

Your real genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond 
sort of personage, who muses in the fields or 
dreams by the fireside ; whose strong impulses — 
that is the cant of it — must needs hurry him into 
wild irregularities or foolish eccentricities; who 
abhors order, and can bear no restraint, and es- 
chews all labor: such a one, for instance, as New- 
ton ' or Milton ! What ! they must have been 
irregular, else they were no geniuses ! 

" The young man," it is often said, " has genius 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

enough, if he would only study." Now the truth 
is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, that genius 
will study, it is that in the mind which does study ; 
that is the very nature of it. I care not to say 
that it will always use books. All study is not 
reading, any more than all reading is study. 
Study, says Cicero, is the voluntary and vigorous 
application of the mind to any subject. 

Such study, such intense mental action, and 
nothing else, is genius. And so far as there is 
any native predisposition about this enviable char- 
acter of mind, it is a predisposition to that action. 
This is the only test of the original bias; and he 
who does not come to that point, though he may 
have shrewdness, and readiness, and parts, never 
had a genius. 

No need to waste regrets upon him, as that he 
never could be induced to give his attention or 
study to anything; he never had that which he is 
supposed to have lost. For attention it is — 
though other qualities belong to this transcendent 
power — attention is it, that is the very soul of 
genius: not the fixed eye, not the poring over a 
book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an 
action of the mind which is steadily concentrated 
upon one idea or one series of ideas, — which col- 
lects in one point the rays of the soul till they 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of its 
thoughts. 

And while the fire burns within, the outward 
man may indeed be cold, indifferent, and negli- 
gent, — absent in appearance ; he may be an idler, 
or a wanderer, apparently without aim or intent; 
but still the fire bums within. And what though 
" it burst forth " at length, as has been said, " like 
volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native 
force .f^ " It only shows the intenser action of the 
elements beneath. What though it breaks like 
lightning from the cloud.? The electric fire had 
been collecting in the firmament through many a 
silent, calm, and clear day. 

What though the might of genius appears in 
one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high 
debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril .^ That 
mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the 
breast of a Demosthenes, was once a feeble infant's 
thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawn- 
ing. A father's care guarded its early growth. 
It soon trod with youthful steps the halls of learn- 
ing, and found other fathers to wait and to watch 
for it, — even as it finds them here. 

It went on; but silence was upon its path, and 
the deep strugglings of the inward soul marked its 
progress, and the cherishing powers of nature 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

silently ministered to it. The elements around 
breathed upon it and " touched it to finer issues." 
The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened 
its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of 
years slowly added to its collected treasures and 
energies ; till in its hour of glory, it stood forth 
embodied in the form of living, commanding, irre- 
sistible eloquence ! 

The world wonders at the manifestation, and 
says, " Strange, strange, that it should come thus 
unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared ! " But 
the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than 
there is in the towering of the pre-eminent forest- 
tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and irresist- 
ible river, or in the wealth and the waving of the 
boundless harvest. 



THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH 

HENEY W. GRADY 

Heniy W. Grady was born in Athens, Ga., May 24, 1850, 
and died in Atlanta, Ga., December 23, 1889. He was one 
of the foremost American journalists, and was achieving 
great renown as an orator when suddenly cut off in his early 
manhood. He did much toward bringing the two sections 
of his country to a better understanding of the questions 
dividing them, and aided materially in allaying the passions 
and animosities that separated the North and the South. 
"The Future of the South" is an extract from a speech 
delivered at Dallas, Texas, October 26, 187T, and " The Con- 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

federate Soldier's Return from Appomattox" is a portion 
of an address delivered before the New England Club, New 
York, December 21, 1886. This address was enthusiastically 
received, and stirred the country with brotherly feeling such 
as had not been felt for years. 

THE world is a battlefield, strewn with the 
wrecks of government and institutions, of 
theories and of faiths that have gone down in the 
ravage of years. On this field lies the South, 
sown with her problems. Upon the field swing 
the lanterns of God. Amid the carnage walks the 
Great Physician. Over the South He bends. 
" If ye but live until to-morrow's sundown ye shall 
endure, my countrymen." Let us for her sake 
turn our faces to the East, and watch for the 
coming sun. Let us stanch her wounds and hold 
steadfast. The sun mounts the skies. As it de- 
scends to us, minister to her, and stand constant 
at her side for the sake of our children, and of 
generations unborn that shall suffer if she fails. 
And when the sun has gone down, and the day of 
her probation is ended, and the stars have rallied 
her heart, the lanterns shall be swung over the 
field and the Great Physician shall lead her up, 
from trouble into content, from suffering into 
peace, from death to life. Let every man here 
pledge himself in this high and ardent hour, as 
I pledge myself, and the boy that shall follow 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

me; every man himself and his son, hand to hand 
and heart to heart, that in death and earnest loy- 
alty, in patient painstaking and care, he shall 
watch her interest, advance her fortune, defend 
her fame, and guard her honor as long as life shall 
last. Every man in the sound of my voice, under 
the deeper consecration he offers to the Union, 
will consecrate himself to the South. Have no 
ambition but to be first at her feet and last in her 
service. No hope but, after a long life of devo- 
tion, to sink to sleep in her bosom, and as a little 
child sleeps at his mother's breast and rests un- 
troubled in the light of her smile. 

With such consecrated service, what could we 
not accomplish; what riches we should gather for 
her; what glory and prosperity we should render 
to the Union; what blessings we should gather 
into the universal harvest of humanity. As I 
think of it, a vision of surpassing beauty unfolds 
to my eyes. I see a South, the home of fifty mil- 
lions of people, who rise up every day to call from 
blessed cities, vast hives of industry and of thrift ; 
her country-sides the treasures from which their 
resources are drawn; her streams vocal with whir- 
ring spindles ; her valleys tranquil in the white 
and gold of the harvest; her mountains showering 
down the music of bells, as her slow-moving flocks 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

and herds go forth from their folds; her rulers 
honest and her people loving, and her homes happy 
and their hearthstones bright, and their waters 
still, and their pastures green, and her conscience 
clear ; her wealth diffused, and poor-houses empty ; 
her churches earnest, and all creeds lost in the 
Gospel. Peace and sobriety walking hand in hand 
through her borders ; honor in her homes ; up- 
rightness in her midst; plenty in her fields; 
straight and simple faith in the hearts of her sons 
and daughters; her two races walking together in 
peace and contentment; sunshine everywhere and 
all the time, and night falling on her gently as 
from the wings of the unseen dove. 

All this, my country, and more can we do for 
you. As I look the vision grows, the splendor 
deepens, the horizon falls back, the skies open 
their everlasting gates, and the glory of the Al- 
mighty God streams through as He looks down 
on His people who have given themselves unto 
Him and leads them from one triumph to another 
until they have reached a glory unspeaking, and 
the whirling stars, as in their courses through 
Arcturus they run to the milky way, shall not look 
down on a better people or happier land. 



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THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S RETURN 
FROM APPOMATTOX 

HENRY W. GRADY 

Extract from his speech on " The New South.'* 

MR. TALMAGE has drawn for you, with a 
master's hand, the picture of your return- 
ing armies. He has told you how, in the pomp 
and circumstance of war, they came back to you, 
marching with proud and victorious tread, reading 
their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with 
me while I tell you of another army that sought 
its home at the close of the late war — an army 
that marched home in defeat and not in victory — 
in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that 
equalled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever 
welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you 
the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up 
in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to 
bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and 
faith, he turned his face southward from Appo- 
mattox in April, 1865. 

Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy- 
hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having 
fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, 
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wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and 
lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last 
time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls 
his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow 
and painful journey. What does he find — let 
me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, 
in the welcome you had justly earned, full pay- 
ment for four years' sacrifice — what does he find 
when, having followed the battle-stained cross 
against overwhelming odds, dreading death not 
half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he 
left so prosperous and beautiful! 

He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, 
his slaves free, his stock killed, his bams empty, 
his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social 
system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away ; 
his people without law or legal status, his com- 
rades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on 
his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very tradi- 
tions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- 
ment, material, or training, and, besides all this, 
confronted with the gravest problem that ever met 
human intelligence, — the establishing of a status 
for the vast body of his liberated slaves. 

What does he do — this hero in gray with a 
heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and 
despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had 
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stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his 
adversity. As ruin was never before so over- 
whelming, never was restoration swifter. The 
soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; 
horses that had charged Federal guns marched 
before the plough, and fields that ran red with 
human blood in April were green with the harvest 
in June; women reared in luxury cut up their 
dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, 
with a patience and heroism that fit women always 
as a garment, gave their hands to work. There 
was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and 
frankness prevailed. 

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, how- 
ever humble, in this work. Never was a nobler 
duty confided to human hands than the uplifting 
and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding 
South — misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her 
suffering, and honest, brave, and generous always. 
In the record of her social, industrial, and political 
illustration we await with confidence the verdict of 
the world. 



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THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United 
States, was bom in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 
1809, and died in Washington, D. C, April 15, 1865. He 
is considered one of the greatest writers of prose of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, his " Speech at the Dedication of the 
National Cemetery at Gettysburg," and his "Second In- 
augural Address," being looked upon as almost perfect 
specimens of pure English, although his entire schooling ex- 
tended over a period of less than one year. As a speaker 
he appeared awkward, and at times hesitating in his de- 
livery, until he lost his self-consciousness through be- 
coming enthused in his subject, when his eyes would shine, 
his voice ring, and his whole body become expressive of the 
intense emotions which took possession of him. 

AT this second appearing to take the oath of 
the Presidential office, there is less occasion 
for an extended address than there was at the first. 
Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course 
to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, 
at the expiration of four years, during which pub- 
lic declarations have been constantly called forth 
on every point and phase of the great contest 
which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the 
energies of the nation, little that is new could be 
presented. The progress of our arms, upon which 
all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the 
public as myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably 
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satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high 
hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it 
is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an 
impending civil war. All dreaded it, — all sought 
to avert it. While the inaugural address was be- 
ing delivered from this place, devoted altogether 
to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents 
were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, 
■ — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide ef- 
fects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated 
war; but one of them would make war rather 
than let the nation survive, and the other would 
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war 
came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were col- 
ored slaves, not distributed generally oyer the 
Union, but localized in the southern part of it. 
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful 
interest. All knew that this interest was, some- 
how, the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- 
petuate, and extend this interest was the object for 
which the insurgents would rend the Union, even 
by war; while the government claimed no right to 
do more than to restrict the territorial enlarge- 
ment of it. 

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Neither party expected for the war the magni- 
tude or the duration which it has already attained. 
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict 
might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself 
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph 
and a result less fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same 
God; and each invokes His aid against the other. 
It may seem strange that any men should dare to 
ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread 
from the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us 
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers 
of both could not be answered — that of neither 
has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe 
unto the world because of off^ences ! for it must 
needs be that off^ences come; but woe to that man 
by whom the off'ence cometh." If we shall sup- 
pose that American slavery is one of those off^ences 
which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, 
but which having continued through His appointed 
time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives 
to both North and South this terrible war, as the 
woe due to those by whom the off^ence came, shall 
we discern therein any departure from those divine 
attributes which the believers in a living God al- 
ways ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope — 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills 
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 
blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thou- 
sand years ago, so still it must be said, " The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether." 

With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, — let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in : to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for 
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and his orphan ; to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting peace among our- 
selves, and with all nations. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LETTER TO 
HORACE GREELEY 

August 22, 1862. 

I HAVE just read yours of the 19th instant, 
addressed to myself through The New York 
Tribune. 

If there be in it any statements or assumptions 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do 
not now and here controvert them. 

If there be in it any inferences which I may 
beheve to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here 
argue against them. 

If there be perceptible in it an impatient and 
dictatorial tone, I waive it, in deference to an old 
friend whose heart I have always supposed to be 
right. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in 
doubt. I would save the Union. I would save 
it in the shortest way under the Constitution. 

The sooner the national authority can be re- 
stored, the nearer the Union will be, — the Union 
as it was. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save slavery, 
I do not agree with them. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, 
I do not agree with them. 

My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union, and not either to save or to destroy 
slavery. 

If I could save the Union without freeing any 
slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing 
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all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save it 
by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would 
also do that. 

What I do about slavery and the colored race, 
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; 
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not 
believe it would help to save the Union. 

I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what 
I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more 
whenever I shall believe doing more will help the 
cause. 

I shall try to correct errors where shown to be 
errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they 
shall appear to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my 
views of official duty, and I intend no modification 
of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men 
everywhere could be free. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. 
BIXBY 

November 21, 1864. 
Dear Madam: — 

I have been shown in the files of the War De- 
partment a statement of the Adjutant General of 
Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons 
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who have died gloriously on the field of battle. 
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words 
of mine which should attempt to beguile you from 
a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain 
from tendering to you the consolation that may 
be found in the thanks of the Republic they died 
to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may 
assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and 
leave you only the cherished memory of the loved 
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours 
to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the Altar of 
Freedom. 

VALUABLE HINTS FOR STUDENTS 

JOHN TODD 

John Todd, clergyman and educator, was born in Rutland, 
Vermont, October 9, 1800, and died in Pittsfield, Mass., Au- 
gust 24, 1873. 

THE himian mind is the brightest display of 
the power and skill of the Infinite mind with 
which we are acquainted. It is created and placed 
in this world to be educated for a higher state of 
existence. Here its faculties begin to unfold, and 
those mighty energies, which are to bear it for- 
ward to unending ages, begin to discover them- 
selves. The object of training such a mind should 
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be, to enable the soul to fulfil her duties well, here, 
and to stand on high vantage-ground when she 
leaves this cradle of her being, for an eternal exist- 
ence beyond the grave. 

Most students need encouragement to sustain, 
instruction to aid, and directions to guide them. 
Few, probably, ever accomplish anything like as 
much as they expected or ought; and it is thought 
one reason is, that they waste a vast amount of time 
in acquiring that experience which they need. 

The reader will please bear in mind, that the 
only object here contemplated is, to throw out 
such hints and cautions, and to give such specific 
directions, as will aid him to become all that the 
fond hopes of his friends anticipate, and all that 
his own heart ought to desire. Doubtless, multi- 
tudes are now in the process of education, who will 
never reach any tolerable standard of excellence. 
Probably some never could; but in most cases, they 
might. The exceptions are few. In most cases 
young men do feel a desire, more or less strong, 
of fitting themselves for respectability and useful- 
ness. 

You may converse with any man, however dis- 
tinguished for attainments, or habits of appHca- 
tion, or power of using what he knows, and he 
will sigh over the remembrance of the past, and 
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tell jou, that there have been many fragments of 
time which he has wasted, and many opportunities 
which he has lost forever. If he had only seized 
upon the fleeting advantages, and gathered up the 
fragments of time, he might have pushed his re- 
searches out into new fields, and, like the immortal 
Bacon, have amassed vast stores of knowledge. 

The mighty minds which have gone before us, 
have left treasures for our inheritance; and the 
choicest gold is to be had for the digging. Hence, 
all that you ever have, must be the result of labor 
— hard, untiring labor. You have friends to 
cheer you on ; you have books and teachers to aid 
you, and multitudes of helps. But, after all, dis- 
ciplining and educating your mind, must be your 
own work. No one can do this but yourself ; and 
nothing in this world, is of any worth, which has 
not labor and toil as its price. 

The first and great object of education is, to 
discipline the mind. Make it the first object to 
be able to fix and hold your attention upon your 
studies. He who can do this, has mastered many 
and great difficulties ; and he who cannot do it, will 
in vain look for success in any department of 
study. To effect any purpose in study, the mind 
must be concentrated. Patience, too, is a virtue, 
kindred to attention; and without it, the mind can 
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not be said to be disciplined. Patient labor and 
investigation, are not only essential to success in 
study, but are an unfailing guarantee to success. 

In addition to attention and patient persever- 
ance, the student should learn to think and act for 
himself. True originality consists in doing things 
well, and doing them in our own way. A mind, 
half-educated, is generally imitating others ; and 
no man was ever great by imitation. Let it, there- 
fore, be remembered, that we can not copy greatness 
or goodness by any effort. We must acquire 
them, if ever attained, by our own patience and 
diligence. 

Students are also in danger of neglecting the 
memory. This is a faculty of the mind too valu- 
able to be neglected; for by it wonders are 
sometimes accomplished. He who has a memory, 
that can seize with an iron grasp, and retain what 
he reads, — the ideas, simply, without the lan- 
guage, and judgment to compare and balance, — 
will scarcely fail of being distinguished. Why 
has that mass of thought, observation, and experi- 
ence, which is embodied in books by the multitude 
of minds which have gone before us, been gath- 
ered, if not, that we may use it, and stand on high 
ground, and push our way still further into the 
boundless regions of knowledge? Memory is the 
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grand store-house of the mind, capable, both of 
vast improvement and enlarged capacity, in pro- 
portion as it is properly cultivated. 

THE SPECTACLE OF THE HEAVENS 

EDWAED EVERETT 

Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., Novem- 
ber 11, 1794, and died at Boston, Mass., January 15, 1865. 
He was a beautiful writer, an able statesman, and a great 
orator. 

MUCH as we are indebted to our observatories 
for elevating our conceptions of the heav- 
enly bodies, they present, even to the unaided 
sight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble 
to describe. I had occasion, a few weeks since, 
to take the early train from Providence to Boston, 
and, for this purpose, rose at two o'clock in the 
morning. Every thing around was wrapped in 
darkness, and hushed in silence, broken only by 
what seemed, at that hour, the unearthly clank 
and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, mid- 
summer's night; the sky was without a cloud; the 
winds were hushed. The moon, then in the last 
quarter, had just risen; and the stars shone with 
a spectral lustre but little affected by her pres- 
ence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the heraJd of 
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the day: the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed 
their sweet influence in the east: Lyra sparkled 
near the zenith: Andromeda veiled her newly dis- 
covered glories from the naked eye, in the south: 
the steady Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked 
meekly up from the depths of the north to their 
sovereign. 

Such was the glorious spectacle, as I entered the 
train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of 
twilight became more perceptible. The . intense 
blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller stars, 
like little children, went first to rest; the sister 
beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but 
the bright constellations of the west and north 
remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous 
transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden 
from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heav- 
ens: the glories of night dissolved into the glories 
of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more 
softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their 
holy eyes ; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks 
of purple soon blushed along the sky ; the whole 
celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides 
of the morning light, which came pouring down 
from above in one great ocean of radiance; till 
at length, as we reached the blue hills, a flash of 
purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and 
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turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into 
rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the ever- 
lasting gates of the morning were thrown wide 
open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too 
severe for gaze of man, began his course. 

I do not wonder at the superstition of the an- 
cient Magians, who, in the morning of the world, 
went up to the hill-tops of Central Asia, and, 
ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious 
work of his hand. But I am filled with amazement 
when I am told that, in this enlightened age, and 
in the heart of the Christian world, there are per- 
sons who can witness this daily manifestation of 
the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say, 
in their hearts. " There is no God." 

PEACE AND WAR 

HENRY WARD BEECHER 

Henry Ward Beecher, the great pulpit orator, was bom 
in Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813, and died in Brook- 
lyn, N. Y., March 8, 1887. He possessed wonderful con- 
trol over his vocal and mental powers, being never at a 
loss for tones or words to express his thoughts, and never 
losing his hold on his listeners, whom he was able to sway 
at will, and a voice of wonderful sweetness, compass, and 
power, which, together with his extensive learning, made 
him one of the greatest orators of modern times. He ex- 
celled both as a pulpit and a political speaker, winning 
equally high renown in both classes of oratory. His style 
of delivery was simple, but of the simplicity which carried 

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conviction, because it showed the mastery he possessed over 
himself and his subject without disclosing the means em- 
ployed, and this resulted in his mastery of his listeners. He 
was a great student of oratory, and in his college days 
practised vocal and physical expression assiduously, as told 
by him in the following languages " I had from childhood 
a thickness of speech arising from a large palate, and when 
a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had 
pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst I was 
fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher 
of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose I cannot 
conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough 
practice of inflections by the voice, of gesture, posture, and 
articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my 
voice on a word — like * justice.' I would have to take a 
posture, frequently at a mark chalked out on the floor. 
Then we would go through all the gestures. It was drill, 
drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. 
Now, I never know what movements I shall make. My 
gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural 
to me. The only method of acquiring effective elocution is 
by practice, of not less than an hour a day, until the student 
has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained 
to right expression." He says this about the speaking voice: 
" The cultivated voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high, 
intermediate, or low, unconsciously to him who uses it, and 
men listen, unaware that they have been bewitched out of 
their weariness by the charms of a voice not artificial, but 
made by assiduous training, to be his second nature." 

THIS great nation, filling all profitable lati- 
tudes, cradled between two oceans, with in- 
exhaustible resources, with riches increasing in an 
unparalleled ratio, by agriculture, by manufac- 
tures, by commerce, with schools and churches, 
with books and newspapers thick as leaves in our 
forests, with institutions sprung from the people, 
and peculiarly adapted to their genius ; a nation 

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not sluggish, but active, used to excitement, prac- 
tised in political wisdom, and accustomed to self- 
government, and all its vast outlying parts held 
together by a federal government, mild in temper, 
gentle in administration, and beneficent in results, 
seemed to have been formed for peace. All at 
once, in this hemisphere of happiness and hope, 
there came trooping clouds with fiery bolts, full of 
death and desolation. At a cannon shot upon 
this fort (Sumter), all the nation, as if they had 
been a trained army lying on their arms, awaiting 
a signal, rose up and began a war which, for 
awfulness, rises into the front rank of bad emi- 
nence. The front of the battle going with the 
sun, was twelve hundred miles long ; and the depth, 
measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. 
In this vast area more than two million men, first 
and last, for four years, have, in skirmish, fight, 
and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts ; 
while a coast and river line, not less than four 
thousand miles in length, has swarmed with fleets 
freighted with artillery. The very industry of the 
country seemed to have been touched by some in- 
fernal wand, and, with one wheel, changed its front 
from peace to war. The anvils of the land beat 
like drums. As out of the ooze emerge monsters, 
so from our mines and foundries uprose new and: 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

strange machines of war, ironclad. And thus, in 
a nation of peaceful habits, without external 
provocation, there arose such a storm of war as 
blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere. 

RAISING THE FLAG 

HENRY WARD BEE CHER 

Extract from an oration at the raising of the " Old 
Flag " at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865. 

WE raise our fathers' banner that it may bring 
back better blessings than those of old; 
that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it 
may restore lawful government, and a prosperity 
purer and more enduring than that which it pro- 
tected before ; that it may win parted friends from 
their alienation; that it may inspire hope, and 
inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to 
the sword, " Return to thy sheath " ; and to the 
plough and sickle, " Go forth " ; that it may heal 
all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new na- 
tional life, compact our strength, purify our 
principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and 
make this people great and strong, not for ag- 
gression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of 
the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative 
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of leading all nations to juster laws, to more hu- 
mane policies, to sincerer friendship, to rational, 
instituted civil liberty, and to universal Christian 
brotherhood. Reverently, piously, in hopeful 
patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as 
of old the bow was painted on the cloud, and, with 
solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it and 
make it a memorial of an everlasting covenant and 
decree that never again on this fair land shall ^ 
deluge of blood prevail. 

ENGLAND AGAINST WAR 

HENRY WARD BEECHER 

I HEAR a loud protest against war. Ladies 
and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman — there is a 
small band in our country and in yours — I wish 
their number were quadrupled — who have borne 
a solemn and painful testimony against all wars 
under all circumstances ; and although I differ with 
them on the subject of defensive warfare, yet when 
men that rebuked their own land, and all lands, 
now rebuke us, though I cannot accept their judg- 
ment, I bow with profound respect to their con- 
sistency. But excepting them, I regard this 
British horror of the American war as something 
wonderful. Why, it is a phenomenon in itself! 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

On what shore has not the prow of your ships 
dashed? What land is there with a name and a 
people where your banner has not led your sol- 
diers? And when the great resurrection reveille 
shall sound it will muster British soldiers from 
every clime and people under the whole heaven. 
Ah! but it is said this is a war against your own 
blood. How long is it since you poured soldiers 
into Canada, and let all your yards work night 
and day to avenge the taking of two men out of 
the Trent? Old England shocked at a war of 
principle! She gained her glories in such a war. 
Old England ashamed of a war of principle ! Her 
national ensign symbolizes her history — the cross 
in a field of blood. And will you tell us — who 
inherit your blood, your ideas, and your pluck — 
that we must not fight? The child must heed the 
parents until the parents get old and tell the child 
not to do the thing that in early life they whipped 
him for not doing. And then the child says fa- 
ther and mother are getting too old ; they had bet- 
ter be taken away from their present home and 
come to live with us. Perhaps you think that the 
old island will do a little longer. Perhaps you 
think there is coal enough. Perhaps you think the 
stock is not quite run out yet ; but whenever Eng- 
land comes to that state that she does not go to 
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war for principle, she had better emigrate, and we 
will get room for her. 

POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL 

Extract from Sermon. — ,Texts: Luke iv. 17-21, Matt, 
xi. 2-6. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER 

THE remarkable people of this world are use- 
ful in their way; but the common people, 
after all, represent the nation, the age, and the 
civilization. Go into any town or city: do not 
ask who lives in that splendid house; do not say. 
This is a fine town, here are streets of houses with 
gardens and yards, and everything that is beauti- 
ful the whole way through. Go into the lanes, 
go into the back streets, go where the mechanic 
lives ; go where the day-laborer lives. See what is 
the condition of the streets there. See what they 
do with the poor, with the helpless and the mean. 
If the top of society bends perpetually over the 
bottom with tenderness, if the rich and strong are 
the best friends of the poor and needy, that is a 
civilized and a Christian community ; but if the rich 
and the wise are the cream and the great bulk of 
the population skim-milk, that is not a prosperous 
community. 

There is a great deal of irreligion in men ; there 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

is a great deal of wickedness and depravity in men, 
but there are times when it is true that the church 
is more dissipated than the dissipated classes of the 
community. If there is one thing that stood out 
more strongly than any other in the ministry of 
our Lord, it is the severity with which he treated 
the exclusiveness of men with knowledge, position, 
and a certain sort of religion, a religion of par- 
ticularity and carefulness ; if there is one class of 
the community against which he hurled his thunder- 
bolts without mercy and predicted woes, it was the 
scribes, Pharisees, scholars, and priests of the 
temples. He told them in so many words, " The 
publican and the harlot will enter the kingdom of 
God before you." The worst dissipation in this 
world is the dry-rot of morality, and of the so- 
called piety that separates men of prosperity and 
of power from the poor and ignoble. They are 
our wards. 

I am not a socialist. I do not preach riot. I 
do not preach the destruction of property. I re- 
gard property as one of the sacred things. The 
real property established by a man's own intelli- 
gence and labor is the crystallized man himself. It 
is the fruit of what his life-work has done ; and not 
in vain, society makes crime against it amongst the 
most punishable. But nevertheless, I warn these 
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men in a country like ours, where every man votes, 
whether he came from Hungary, or from Russia, 
or from Germany, or from France or Italy, or 
Spain or Portugal, or from the Orient, — from 
Japan and China, because they too are going to 
vote ! On the Niagara River, logs come floating 
down and strike an island, and there they lodge and 
accumulate for a little while, and won't go over. 
But the rains come, the snow melts, the river rises, 
and the logs are lifted up and down, and they go 
swinging over the falls. The stream of suffrage 
of free men, having all the privileges of the State, 
is this great stream. The figure is defective in 
this, that the log goes over the Niagara Falls, but 
that is not the way the country is going or will 
go. . , . There is a certain river of political 
life, and everything has to go into it first or last ; 
and if, in days to come, a man separates himself 
from his fellows without sympathy, if his wealth 
and power make poverty feel itself more poor and 
men's misery more miserable, and set against him 
the whole stream of popular feeling, that man is in 
danger. He may not know who dynamites him, 
but there is danger; and let him take heed who is 
in peril. There is nothing easier in the world than 
for rich men to ingratiate themselves with the whole 
community in which they live, and so secure them- 
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selves. It is not selfishness that will do it; it is 
not by increasing the load of misfortune; it is not 
by wasting substance in riotous living upon appe- 
tites and passions. It is by recognizing that every 
man is a brother. It is by recognizing the essen- 
tial spirit of the gospel, " Love thy neighbor as 
thyself." It is by using some of their vast power 
and riches so as to diffuse joy in every section of 
the community. 

Here then I close this discourse. How much it 
enrolls ! How very simple it is ! It is the whole 
gospel. When you make an application of it to 
all the phases of organization and classification 
of human interests and developments, it seems as 
though it were as big as the universe. Yet when 
you condense it, it all comes back to the one simple 
creed : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Who is 
my neighbor.? A certain man went down to 
Jericho, and so on. That tells you who your 
neighbor is. Whosoever has been attacked by rob- 
bers, has been beaten, has been thrown down — by 
liquor, by gambling, or by any form of wickedness ; 
whosoever has been cast into distress, and you are 
called on to raise him up — that is your neighbor. 
Love your neighbor as yourself. That is the 
gospel. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE IMMENSITY OF CREATION 

O. M. MITCHELIi 

Ormsby McKnight Mitchell, was born in Morganfield, 
Ky., July 28, 1809, and died in Beaufort, S. C, October 
30, 1862. 

LIGHT traverses space at the rate of a million 
miles a minute, jet the light from the near- 
est star requires ten years to reach the earth, and 
Herschel's telescope revealed stars two thousand 
three hundred times further distant. The great 
telescope of Lord Ross pursued these creations of 
God still deeper into space, and, having resolved 
the nebulse of the Milky Way into stars, discovered 
other systems of stars — beautiful diamond points, 
glittering through the black darkness beyond. 
When he beheld this amazing abyss — when he saw 
these systems scattered profusely throughout space 
— when he reflected upon their immense distance, 
their enormous magnitude, and the countless mil- 
lions of worlds that belong to them — it seemed to 
him as though the wild dream of the German poet 
was more than realized. 

" God called man in dreams into the vestibule of 
heaven, saying, ' come up higher, and I will show 
thee the glory of my house ' ; and to his angels who 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

stood about His throne, he said, ' take him, strip 
him of his robes of flesh; cleanse his affections; 
put a new breath into his nostril; but touch not 
his human heart — the heart that fears, and hopes, 
and trembles.' A moment, and it was done, and 
the man stood ready for his unknown voyage. 
Under the guidance of a mighty angel, with sounds 
of flying pinions, they sped away from the battle- 
ments of heaven. Some time, on the mighty angel's 
wings, they fled through Saharas of darkness, 
wildernesses of death. At length, from a distance 
not counted, save in the arithmetic of heaven, light 
beamed upon them — a sleepy flame, as seen 
through a hazy cloud. They sped on, in their ter- 
rible speed, to meet the light; the light with les- 
ser speed came to meet them. In a moment, the 
blazing of suns around them — a moment, the 
wheeling of planets ; then came long eternities of 
twilight; then again, on the right hand and the 
left, appeared more constellations. At last, the 
man sank down, crying, ' Angel, I can go no 
further, let me lie down in the grave, and hide my- 
self from the infinitude of the universe, for end 
there is none.' ' End is there none? ' demanded the 
angel. And, from the glittering stars that shone 
around, there came a choral shout, ' end there is 
none ! ' ' End is there none ? ' demanded the angel 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

again, ' and is it this that awes thy soul? ' I an- 
swer, ' end there is none to the universe of God ! 
Lo, also, there is no beginning ! ' " 



THE MARCH OF THE FLAG 

ALBERT jr. BEVERIDGE 

Albert J. Beveridge was born on a farm in Highland 
County, Ohio, October 6, 1862; was admitted to the bar in 
1886, and has achieved success in his profession, especially 
as a fervid and able advocate. He excels in demonstrative 
eloquence, and is one of the most successful and powerful 
political speakers of the day. He was elected to the United 
States Senate from Indiana, January 17, 1899, and has 
spoken there several times on impending questions in a 
manner to impress that assembly and the country. One of 
his best addresses was delivered on January 19, 1900, in 
reference to the Philippine question. The following extract 
is from one of his political speeches, delivered at Indian- 
apolis, Ind., September 16, 1898. 

WLL you remember that we do but what our 
fathers did — we but pitch the tent of 
liberty — farther westward, farther southward — 
we only continue the march of the flag. 
The march of the flag! 

In 1789, the flag of the republic waved over four 
million souls in thirteen States, and their savage 
territory, which stretched to the Mississippi, to 
Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that 
day said that no new territory was needed, and, for 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the hour, thej were right. But Jefferson, who 
dreamed of Cuba as a state of the Union; Jeffer- 
son, the first imperiahst of the repubhc — Jeffer- 
son acquired that imperial territory which swept 
from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas 
to the British possessions, and the march of the 
flag began ! 

The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved, but 
the flag swept on ! The title to that noble land out 
of which Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Mon- 
tana have been carved, was uncertain; Jefferson, 
strict constructionist of constitutional power 
though he was, obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse 
within him, whose watchword then, and whose watch- 
word throughout the world to-day is, " Forward," 
another empire was added to the republic, and the 
march of the flag went on ! 

Those who deny the power of free institutions to 
expand, urged every argument, and more, that we 
hear to-day; but the people's judgment approved 
the command of their blood, and the march of the 
flag went on ! 

A screen of land from New Orleans to Florida 
shut us from the gulf, and over this and the Ever- 
glade Peninsula waved the saffron flag of Spain. 
Andrew Jackson seized both, the American people 
stood at his back, and, under Monroe, the Floridas 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

came under the dominion of the republic, and the 
march of the flag went on ! 

The Cassandras prophesied every prophecy of de- 
spair we hear to-day, but the march of the flag went 
on! Then Texas responded to the bugle-calls of 
liberty, and the march of the flag went on ! And, 
at last, we waged war with Mexico, and the flag 
swept over the Southwest, over fearless California, 
past the Gate of Gold, to Oregon on the north, and 
from ocean to ocean its folds of glory blazed. 

And now, obeying the same voice that Jeff^erson 
heard and obeyed, that Jackson heard and obeyed, 
that Monroe heard and obeyed, that Seward heard 
and obeyed, that Ulysses S. Grant heard and obeyed, 
that Benjamin Harrison heard and obeyed, Wil- 
liam McKinley plants the flag over the islands of 
the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national 
security, and the march of the flag goes on ! 



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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE BLIND PREACHER 

WILLIAM WIRl 

William Wirt, American orator, author, and lawyer, was 
born in Bladensburg, Md., November 8, 1773, and died in 
Washington, D. C, February 18, 1834. He possessed a ripe 
knowledge, an analytical mind, and a voice of sweetness, 
strength, and expression which was under splendid control. 

IT was one Sunday, as I travelled through the 
county of Orange, that my eye was caught by 
a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old wooden 
house in the forest, not far from the roadside. 
Having frequently seen such objects before in 
travelling through these States, I had no difficulty 
in understanding that this was a place of religious 
worship. 

Devotion alone should have stopped me to join 
in the duties of the congregation ; but I must con- 
fess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such 
a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On 
entering, I was struck with his preternatural ap- 
pearance. He was a tall and very spare old man ; 
his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, 
his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking 
under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments 
ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. 

The first emotions which touched my breast were 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah! 
how soon were all my feelings changed ! The lips 
of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic 
swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! 
It was a day of the administration of the sacra- 
ment ; and his sub j ect, of course, was the passion of 
our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a 
thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long 
ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods 
of America, I was to meet with a man whose elo- 
quence would give to this topic a new and more sub- 
lime pathos than I had ever before witnessed. 

As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute 
the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more 
than human solemnity in his air and manner, which 
made my blood run cold, and my whole frame 
shiver. 

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our 
Saviour; His trial before Pilate; His ascent up 
Calvary ; His crucifixion, and His death. I knew 
the whole history; but never, until then, had I 
heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, 
so colored! It was all new; and I seemed to have 
heard it for the first time in my life. His enuncia- 
tion was so deliberate that his voice trembled on 
every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly 
trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



force of description, that the original scene ap- 
peared to be, at that moment, acting before our 
eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews : the star- 
ing, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We 
saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of in- 
dignation; and my hands were involuntarily and 
convulsively clinched. 

But when he came to touch on the patience, the 
forgiving meekness of our Saviour; when he drew 
to the life. His blessed eyes, streaming in tears to 
heaven; His voice breathing to God, a soft and 
gentle prayer of pardon on His enemies, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do," — 
the voice of the preacher, which had all along falt- 
ered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance 
being entirely obstructed by the force of his feel- 
ings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and 
burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. 
The eff^ect is inconceivable. The whole house re- 
sounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and 
shrieks of the congregation. 

It was some time before the tumult had subsided, 
so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judg- 
ing by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own 
weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situa- 
tion of the preacher. For I could not conceive 
how he would be able to let his audience down from 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the height to which he had wound them, without im- 
pairing the solemnity and dignity of the subject, 
or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the 
fall. But, no ! the descent was as beautiful and 
sublime as the elevation had been rapid and en- 
thusiastic. 

The first sentence, with which he broke the awful 
silence, was a quotation from Rousseau : " Socrates 
died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a 
God." 

I despair of giving you any idea of the effect 
produced by this short sentence, unless you could 
perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, 
as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never 
before did I completely understand what Demos- 
thenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. 
You are to bring before you the venerable figure of 
the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling 
to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, 
and associating with his performance the melan- 
choly grandeur of their geniuses ; you are to im- 
agine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented 
enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling 
melody ; you are to remember the pitch of passion 
and enthusiasm to which the congregation were 
raised; and then the few minutes of portentous, 
death-like silence which reigned throughout the 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

house; the preacher removing his white handker- 
chief from his aged face (even yet wet from the 
recent torrent of his tears), and, slowly stretching 
forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the 
sentence, " Socrates died like a philosopher," then, 
pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both 
clasped together with warmth and energy to his 
breast, lifting his " sightless balls " to heaven, and 
pouring his whole soul into his trembling voice, — 
" but Jesus Christ, like a God ! " If he had been 
indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect 
could scarcely have been more divine. 

THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF MAN 

JEREMIAH S. BLACK 



Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born in the Glades, Somerset 
County, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1810; began the practice 
of law, 1830; became president of his judicial district in 
1842; was elected judge of the supreme court of the State in 
1851; and was chosen Chief Justice. In 1857, President 
Buchanan made him Attorney-general of the United States, 
and in 1860 Secretary of State. He retired from the office 
when Lincoln's cabinet was appointed, and engaged in his 
profession and in politics. He died in 1883. He was an 
able lawyer, eloquent speaker, conscientious judge, and hon- 
est governmental official. 

BUT how am I to prove the existence of these 
rights? I do not propose to do it by a long 
chain of legal argumentation, nor by the produc- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tion of numerous books with the leaves dog-eared 
and the pages marked. If it depended upon judi- 
cial precedents, I think I could produce as many as 
might be necessary. If I claimed this freedom, 
under any kind of prescription, I could prove a 
good long procession in ourselves and those under 
whom we claim it. I might begin with Tacitus, 
and show how the contest arose in the forests of 
Germany more than two thousand years ago ; how 
the rough virtues and sound common sense of that 
people established the right of trial by jury, and 
thus started on a career which has made their pos- 
terity the foremost race that ever lived in all the 
tide of time. The Saxons carried it to England, 
and were ever ready to defend it with their blood. 
It was crushed out by the Danish invasion ; and all 
that they suffered of tyranny and oppression, dur- 
ing the period of their subjugation, resulted from 
the want of trial by jury. If that had been con- 
ceded to them, the reaction would not have taken 
place, which drove the Danes to their frozen homes 
in the North. But those ruffian sea-kings could 
not understand that, and the reaction came. Al- 
fred, the greatest of revolutionary heroes and the 
wisest monarch that ever sat on a throne, made the 
first use of his power, after the Saxons restored it, 
to re-establish their ancient laws. He had promised 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

them that he would, and he was true to them 
because they had been true to him. But it was 
not easily done ; the courts were opposed to it, for it 
limited their power — a kind of power that every- 
body covets — the power to punish without regard 
to law. He was obliged to hang forty-four judges 
in one year for refusing to give his subjects a 
trial by jury. When the historian says he hung 
them, it is not meant that he put them to death 
without a trial. He had them impeached before 
the grand council of the nation, the Wittenagemote, 
the parliament of that time. During the subse- 
quent period of Saxon domination, no man on 
English soil was powerful enough to refuse a legal 
trial to the meanest peasarit. If any minister or 
any king, in war or in peace, had dared to punish 
a freeman by a tribunal of his own appointment, 
he would have roused the wrath of the whole popu- 
lation ; all orders of society would have resisted it ; 
lord and vassal, knight and squire, priest and peni- 
tent, bocman and socman, master and thrall, copy- 
holder and villein, would have risen in one mass and 
burnt the offender to death in his castle, or followed 
him in his flight and torn him to atoms. It was 
again trampled down by the Norman conquerors ; 
but the evils resulting from the want of it united 
all classes in the effort which compelled King John 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to restore it by the Great Charter. Everybody is 
familiar with the struggle which the English people, 
during many generations, made for their rights 
with the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, 
and which ended finally in the revolution of 1688, 
when the liberties of England were placed upon an 
impregnable basis by the Bill of Rights. 

Many times the attempt was made to stretch 
the royal authority far enough to justify military 
trials ; but it never had more than temporary suc- 
cess. Five hundred years ago Edward the Second, 
closed up a great rebellion by taking the life of 
its leader, the Earl of Lancaster, after trying him 
before a military court. Eight years later the 
same king, together with his lords and commons 
in parliament assembled, acknowledged with shame 
and sorrow that the execution of Lancaster was a 
mere murder, because the courts were open and he 
might have had a legal trial. Queen Elizabeth, for 
sundry reasons affecting the safety of the State, 
ordered that certain offenders, not of her army, 
should be tried according to the law martial. But 
she heard the storm of popular vengeance rising, 
and, haughty, imperious, self-willed as she was, she 
yielded the point; for she knew that upon that 
subject the English people would never consent to 
be trifled with. StraflPord, as Lord Lieutenant of 
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Ireland, tried the Viscount Stormount before a 
military commission. When impeached for it, he 
pleaded in vain that Ireland was in a state of in- 
surrection, that Stormount was a traitor, and the 
army would be undone if it could not defend it- 
self without appealing to the civil courts. The 
parliament was deaf; the king himself could not 
save him; he was condemned to suffer death as a 
traitor and a murderer. Charles the First issued 
commissions to divers officers for the trial of his 
enemies according to the course of military law. 
If rebellion was ever a cause for such an act, he 
could surely have pleaded it ; for there was scarcely 
a spot in his kingdom, from sea to sea, where the 
royal authority was not disputed by somebody. 
Yet the parliament demanded in their petition of 
right, and the king was obliged to concede, that 
all his commissions were illegal. James the Second 
claimed the right to suspend the operation of the 
penal laws — a power which all the courts denied — 
but the experience of his predecessors taught him 
that he could not suspend any man's right to a 
trial. He could easily have convicted the Seven 
Bishops of any offence he saw fit to charge them 
with, if he could have selected their judges from 
among the mercenary creatures to whom he had 
given commands in his army. But this he dared 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

hot do. He was obliged to send the Bishops to a 
jury, and endure the mortification of seeing them 
acquitted. He, too, might have had rebeUion for 
an excuse. The conspiracy was already ripe, which 
a few months afterwards made him an exile and an 
outcast ; he had reason to believe that the Prince of 
Orange was making his preparations on the other 
side of the channel to invade the kingdom, where 
thousands burned to j oin him ; nay, he pronounced 
the Bishops guilty of rebellion by the very act by 
which he arrested them. He had raised an army to 
meet the rebellion, and he was on Hounslow Heath 
reviewing the troops organized for that purpose, 
when he heard the great shout of joy that went up 
from Westminster Hall, was echoed back from 
Temple Bar, spread down the city and over the 
Thames, and rose from every vessel on the river — 
the simultaneous shout of two hundred thousand 
men for the triumph of justice and law. 

CONSTRUCTIVE TREASON 

WIXIilAM PINKNEY 

William Pinkney, LL.D., was born in Maryland in 1764; 
admitted to the bar in 1786, and soon obtained a large 
practice. He was a member of the Maryland convention, 
called in 1788 to ratify the United States Constitution; 
served in the State council, house of delegates, and Senate, 
and in 1796 went to England as commissioner under the 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Jay treaty. He returned in 1804, and the next year was 
made attorney-general of Maryland. In 1806, he was again 
sent to England as minister extraordinary, and he remained 
as minister resident from 1807 to 1811. He was Attorney- 
general of the United States from 1811 to 1818, and served 
in the War of 1812 as commander of a volunteer corps, re- 
ceiving a dangerous wound at Bladensburg. He was elected 
to Congress in 1815, and appointed minister to Russia the 
next year. He entered the United States Senate in 1819. 
He died in 1822. 

THE opinion which the chief justice has just de- 
Hvered is not, and I thank God for it, the law 
of the land. If you have the slightest doubt on the 
subject, I will undertake to remove it, to show you 
that the cases have been misconceived, and that the 
conclusions drawn from them are erroneous. 

No man can feel for the learned judge who has 
just given you his instructions, a reverence and af- 
fection more sincere than I do. But reverence and 
affection for him shall not stand in the way of the 
great duty which I owe to a fellow citizen, who re- 
lies on me to shield his innocence from the charge 
of guilt, and his life from an attainder for treason. 
I had hoped that, since his motives were admitted on 
all hands to be entitled to praise, since the grand 
jury had associated with their indictment a certifi- 
cate of the purity of his views, and a solemn rec- 
ommendation that the prosecution should be 
abandoned, he would at least have been left by the 
district attorney, and the court, to obtain from 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

you, as he could, a deliverance from the danger 
that encompassed him. In that hope I have been 
disappointed. As if the salvation of the State de- 
pended upon the conviction of this unfortunate 
man, whose situation, one would think, an inquisitor 
might deplore, the district attorney has gone out 
of his way to bring down vengeance upon him ; and 
one of the court has told you that he is a traitor, 
and that you ought to find him so. 

In a case where justice might be expected to be 
softened into clemency, and even to connive at ac- 
quittal, where every generous sentiment must take 
part with the accused, and law might be thought to 
fear the approach of tyranny, if it should succeed 
in crushing him ; in such a case the established order 
of trial is deserted, a pernicious novelty is intro- 
duced, the court is called upon to mix itself in your 
deliberations, to mutilate the defence of the prison- 
er's counsel, to harden your consciences against the 
solicitations of an enlightened mercy, and to sacri- 
fice the prisoner to gloomy and exterminating 
principles, which would render the noble and benef- 
icent system of law, for which we are distinguished, 
a hideous spectacle of cruelty and oppression. 
For the sake of the country to which I belong, as 
well as of my client, I will not only protest before 
you against these principles, but will examine and 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

speak of them with freedom, restrained only by the 
decorum which this place requires. 

In my argument to the court, I showed that if it 
be done treacherously it is treason ; but that if the 
commander act from any motive not corrupt, no in- 
dictment can touch him. If the fort be as im- 
pregnable as Gibraltar, and be garrisoned by 
50,000 men, and it is surrendered to a force of half 
that number, from motives of fear, the commander 
cannot be punished as a traitor. What can be more 
strong to show that upon an indictment for ad- 
herence, the law looks into the heart, and adapts its 
penalties accordingly.'' Has that authority been 
answered.? 

In the case af Stone, which was parallel with the 
point, the court said expressly, if the heart be pure 
it matters not how incorrect the conduct. So the 
counsel argued and Stone was acquitted. Has any 
answer been given to that authority? Has any 
been ever attempted.? 

This indictment charges Hodges with having 
done certain things wickedly, maliciously and 
traitorously. Must not the United States prove 
what they allege ? When the law allows even words 
to be given in evidence as explanatory of intention 
to exculpate, it admits that exculpation may be 
made out by proof of innocent motives ; that overt 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

acts alone do not furnish a criterion ; that concomi- 
tant facts, illustrative of the state of the heart, 
must not be neglected. 

A military force levies contributions. If you 
pay them for the purpose of saving the country 
from further mischief, although there be no fear 
or danger of death, the law says this is not treason. 
By the doctrine of the chief justice, however, it is 
treason, and consequently his doctrine is unsound. 

On this occasion the enemy were in complete 
power in the district where the transactions occurred 
which are complained of in the indictment. They 
were unawed by the thing which we call an army, 
for it had fled in every direction. They were 
omnipotent. The law of war prevailed and every 
other law was silent. The domestic code was sus- 
pended. They menaced pillage and conflagration ; 
and after they had wantonly destroyed edifices 
which all civilized warfare had hitherto respected, 
was it to be believed that they would spare a petty 
village which had renewed hostilities before the seal 
of capitulation was dry.'' There was menace — 
power to execute — probability — nay, certainty, 
that it would be executed. 

How, then, can you find a wicked and traitorous 
motive in the breast of my client .^^ There is not 
only the absence of my wicked motive, but there is 

[ m ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the visible presence of those which are laudable : an 
attachment to Dr. Beanes, anxiety for the defence- 
less people about him, or desire to preserve the 
county from the afflictions that hung over it. In 
conduct so characterized, so produced, we discover 
the operation of an excellent heart upon a mind 
which virtuous inducements could betray into error, 
but what way we can distort it into treason, I have 
not yet been able distinctly to learn. 

The conduct is in itself treasonable, says the chief 
justice. It necessarily imports the wicked inten- 
tion charged by the indictment. The construction 
makes it treason, because it aids and comforts the 
enemy. 

These are strong and comprehensive positions; 
but they have not been proved ; and they cannot be 
proved until we relapse into the gulf of construc- 
tive treason, from which our ancestors in another 
country have long since escaped. 

Gracious God ! In the nineteenth century to talk 
of constructive treason! Is it possible in this 
favored land — this last asylum of liberty blest 
with all that can render a nation happy at home 
and respected abroad — this should be law? No. 
I stand up as a man to rescue my country from this 
reproach. I say there is no color for this slander 
upon our jurisprudence. Had I thought otherwise, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKISR 

I should have asked for mercy, not for law. I 
would have sent my client to the feet of the presi- 
dent, not have brought him, with bold defiance, to 
confront his accusers, and demand your verdict. 
He could have had a nolle prosequi. I confirmed 
him in his resolution not to ask it, by telling him 
that he was safe without it. Under these circum- 
stances, I may claim some respect for my opinion. 
My opportunities for forming a judgment upon 
this subject, I am compelled to say, by the strange 
turn which this cause has taken, are superior to 
those of the chief justice. I say nothing of the 
knowledge which long study and extensive practice 
enabled me to bring to the consideration of this 
case. I rely upon this ; my opinion has not been 
hastily formed since the commencement of the trial. 
It is a result of a deliberate examination of all the 
authorities, of a thorough investigation of the law 
of treason in all its forms, made at leisure and under 
a deep sense of a fearful responsibility of my client. 
It depended upon me whether he should submit him- 
self to your justice, or use, with the chief magis- 
trate, the intercession of the grand jury, which 
could not have failed to have been successful. You 
are charged with his life and honor, because I as- 
sured him that the law was a pledge for the security 
of both. I declared to him that I would stake my 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

own life upon the safety of his; and I declare to 
you now that you have as much power to shed the 
blood of the advocate as to harm the client whom 
he defends. 

If the naked fact of delivery constitute the crime 
of treason, why not hang the man who goes under 
a flag of truce to return or exchange prisoners? 
According to the doctrine of the chief justice, this 
man is equally guilty with him who stands at the 
bar, if you are forbidden to examine his mind, but 
are commanded by the law to look only to his acts. 
This doctrine, I pledge myself, goes through every 
nerve and artery of the law. 

If the doctrine of the chief justice be the law of 
the land, every man concerned in the deeds of blood 
that were acted during our recent war, was a 
murderer. 

Our gallant soldiers who had repulsed the hostile 
step whenever it trod upon our shores ; our gallant 
tars who unfurled our flag, acquired for us a name 
and rank upon the ocean which will not soon be ob- 
literated — these are all liable to be arraigned at 
this bar. These men have carried dismay and death 
into the ranks of the foe; blood calls for blood. 
You dare not inquire into the causes which produced 
the circumstances; which attended the motives; 
which prompted the deeds of carnage. The act, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

you are told by the chief justice, and such is the 
reasoning of the attorney general, involves the in- 
tent. 

Gentlemen, this desolating doctrine would sweep 
us from the face of the earth. Even when we de- 
served to be crowned with laurels, we should be 
stretched on a gibbet. I tremble for my children, 
for my country, when I reflect upon the conse- 
quences of these detestable tenets which reduce in- 
discretions and wickedness to the same level. 
Which of you is there that in some unguarded 
moment may not, with honest motives, be im- 
prudent .^^ Which of you can hope to pass through 
life without the imputation of crime, if your 
motives be separated from your conduct, and guilt 
may be fastened upon your actions, although the 
heart be innocent .f* 

Gentlemen, so solemnly, so deeply, so religiously, 
do I feel impressed with this principle, that I know 
not how to leave the case with you, although at the 
present moment, it strikes my mind in so clear 
a light that I know not how to make it more 
clear. 

If this damnable prosecution should prevail, it 

would be the duty of the district attorney instantly 

to arraign General Bowie, one of the witnesses in 

this case, than whom a truer patriot never lived. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Naj, half Prince George's County would come 
within its baleful influence. 

Yet such is the law the chief justice recommends 
to you. His associate does not concur with him. 
In this conflict of opinion, I should be entitled to 
your verdict, but I rest my case upon more exalted 
grounds. I call upon you as honorable men, as 
you are just, as you value your liberties, as you 
prize your Constitution, to say — and say it 
promptly — that my client is not guilty. 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

THOMAS JEFFEESON 

Thomas Jefferson, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, and third 
President of the United States, was born at Shadwell, Va., 
April 2, 1743, and died at Monticello, Va., July 4, 1826. He 
was the author of the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence and of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 
and was called the Father of the University of Virginia. 

WHEN, in the course of human events, it be- 
comes necessary for one people to dissolve 
the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume among the powers of the 
earth the separate and equal station to which the 
laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a 
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires 
that they should declare the causes which impel 
them to separation. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all 
men are created equal; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inahenable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness; that to secure these rights, govern- 
ments are instituted among men, deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the governed; that 
whenever any form of government becomes de- 
structive of these ends, it is the right of the people 
to alter or abolish it, and to institute new govern- 
ment, laying its foundation on such principles, and 
organizing its powers in such form, as to them 
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that 
governments long established should not be 
changed for light and transient causes ; and ac- 
cordingly all experience hath shown that mankind 
are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer- 
able, than to right themselves by abohshing the 
forms to which they are accustomed. But when 
a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing 
invariably the same object, evinces a design to re- 
duce them under absolute despotism, it is their 
right, it is their duty to throw off such govern- 
ment, and to provide new guards for their future 
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of 
these colonies ; and such is now the necessity which 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

constrains them to alter their former systems of 
government. The history of the present king of 
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and 
usurpations, all having in direct object the es- 
tablishment of an absolute tyranny over these 
States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a 
candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most whole- 
some and necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of 
immediate and pressing importance, unless sus- 
pended in their operation till his assent should be 
obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly 
neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the ac- 
commodation of large districts of people, unless 
those people would relinquish the right of repre- 
sentation in the legislature, a right inestimable to 
them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places 
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the de- 
pository of their public records, for the sole pur- 
pose of fatiguing them into compliance with his 
measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly 
for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on 
the rights of the people. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

He has refused for a long time after such dis- 
solutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the 
legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have 
returned to the people at large for their exercise, 
the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to 
all the dangers of invasion from without and con- 
vulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of 
these States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws 
for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migrations hither, and 
raising the conditions of new appropriations of 
lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice 
by refusing his assent to laws for establishing 
judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone 
for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and 
payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and 
sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our 
people and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us in times of peace standing 
armies without the consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military inde- 
pendent of, and superior to the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and un- 
acknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to 
their acts of pretended legislation for quartering 
large bodies of armed troops among us ; for pro- 
tecting them by a mock trial from punishment for 
any murders which they should commit on the in- 
habitants of these States ; for cutting off our trade 
with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on 
us without our consent; for depriving us in many 
cases of the benefits of trial by jury; for trans- 
porting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended 
offences; for abolishing the free system of Eng- 
lish laws in a neighboring province, establishing 
therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its 
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example 
and fit instrument for introducing the same abso- 
lute rule into these colonies; for taking away our 
charters, abolishing our most valuable laws ; and 
altering fundamentally the forms of our govern- 
ments ; for suspending our own legislatures, and 
declaring themselves invested with power to legis- 
late for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here by declaring 
us out of his protection and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, 
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our 
people. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

He is at this time transporting large armies of 
foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, 
desolation, and tyranny already begun with cir- 
cumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paral- 
leled in the most barbarous ages and totally un- 
worthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken 
captive on the high seas to bear arms against their 
country, and to become the executioners of their 
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by 
their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, 
and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of 
our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose 
known rule of warfare is an undistinguished de- 
struction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have 
petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; 
our repeated petitions have been answered only by 
repeated injuries. 

A prince whose character is thus marked by 
every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be 
the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our 

British brethren. We have warned them from time 

to time of attempts by their legislature to extend 

an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

reminded them of the circumstances of our emigra- 
tion and settlement here : we have appealed to their 
native justice and magnanimity, and we have con- 
jured them by the ties of our common kindred, to 
disavow these usurpations which would inevitably 
interrupt our connection and correspondence. 
They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and 
of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce 
in the necessity which denounces our separation 
and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, ene- 
mies in war; in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United 
States of America, in General Congress assembled, 
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for 
the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name, 
and by the authority of the good people of these 
colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these 
united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States; that they are absolved 
from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that 
all political connection between them and the State 
of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- 
solved; and that as free and independent States, 
they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, 
contract alhances, establish commerce, and to do 
all other acts and things which independent States 
may of right do. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

And for the support of this declaration, with a 
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- 
dence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, 
our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 

THE EXECUTION OF A MADMAN IS 
MURDER 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD 

William Henry Seward, lawyer, anti-slavery agitator, 
and statesman, was born in the town of Florida, Orange 
County, New York, May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, 
New York, October 10, 1872. He won distinction as a 
lawyer, but drifted into the more congenial field of politics. 
He served as State senator, governor, United States sena- 
tor, and secretary of state in the cabinets of Lincoln and 
Johnson. He was a consistent and logical opponent of 
slavery and the first to base his opposition to its con- 
tinuance on the purely political and economic reason that 
it injured not only the race held in slavery, but also the 
one that enslaved. 

Seward's oratory is convincing because it is clear, direct, 
and pregnant with truth. His thoughts and words flow 
freely and with a continuity that never permits the listener 
to lose the main thought, although he interjects many 
secondary thoughts, but this is done in such a masterly man- 
ner as to strengthen instead of weaken the principal one. 
His speeches show clearly that they consist of spoken words, 
as they are impregnated with the force that reflects the 
living voice, and denote the orator in every line as dis- 
tinguished from the mere writer. His statements are clear, 
his arguments logical, and his conclusions convincing. 

4 irpHOU shalt not kill," and "Whoso shed- 
-■- deth man's blood by man shall his blood 
be shed," are laws found in the code of that people 
^4 [ 209 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

who, although dispersed and distracted, trace their 
history to the creation ; a history that records that 
murder was the first of human crimes. 

The first of these precepts constitutes a tenth 
part of the jurisprudence which God saw fit to 
establish, at an early period, for the government of 
all mankind throughout all generations. The 
latter, of less universal obligation, is still retained 
in our system, although other States as intelligent 
and refined, as secure and peaceful, have substi- 
tuted for it the more benign principle that good 
shall be returned for evil. I yield implicit sub- 
mission to this law, and acknowledge the justice 
of its penalty, and the duty of the courts and 
juries to give it effect. 

In this case, if the prisoner be guilty of mur- 
der, I do not ask remission of punishment. If he 
be guilty, never was murderer more guilty. He 
has murdered, not only John G. Van Nest, but his 
hands are reeking with the blood of other, and 
numerous, and even more pitiable victims. The 
slaying of Van Nest, if a crime at all, was the 
cowardly crime of assassination. John G. Van 
Nest was a just, upright, virtuous man, of middle 
age, of grave and modest demeanor, distinguished 
by especial marks of the respect and esteem of his 
fellow-citizens. On his arm leaned a confiding 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

wife, and they supported on the one side, chil- 
dren to whom they had given being, and, on the 
other, aged and venerable parents, from whom 
they had derived existence. The assassination of 
such a man was an atrocious crime, but the mur- 
derer, with more than savage refinement, immolated 
on the same altar, in the same hour, a venerable 
and virtuous matron of more than three-score 
years, and her daughter, wife of Van Nest, mother 
of an unborn infant. Nor was this all. Provi- 
dence, which, for its own mysterious purposes, 
permitted these dreadful crimes, in mercy suffered 
the same arm to be raised against the sleeping 
orphan child of the butchered parents, and re- 
ceived it into Heaven. A whole family, just, 
gentle, and pure, were thus, in their own house, 
in the night time, without any provocation, with- 
out one moment's warning, sent by the murderer 
to join the assembly of the just; and even the 
laboring man, sojourning within their gates, re- 
ceived the fatal blade into his breast, and survives 
through the mercy, not of the murderer, but of 
God. 

For William Freeman, as a murderer, I have 

no commission to speak. If he had silver and 

gold accumulated with the frugality of Croesus, 

and should pour it all at my feet, I would not 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

stand an hour between him and the avenger. But 
for the innocent, it is my right, my duty to speak. 
If this sea of blood was innocently shed, then it is 
my duty to stand between him until his steps lose 
their hold upon the scaffold. 

" Thou shalt not kill," is a commandment ad- 
dressed, not to him alone, but to me, to you, to the 
Court, and to the whole community. There are no 
exceptions from that commandment, at least in civil 
life, save those of self-defence, and capital punish- 
ment for crimes is the due and just administration 
of the law. There is not only a question, then, 
whether the prisoner has shed the blood of his 
fellowman, but the question whether we shall un- 
lawfully shed his blood. I should be guilty of 
murder if, in my present relation, I saw the execu- 
tioner waiting for an insane man and failed to 
say, or failed to do in his behalf, all that my 
ability allowed. I think it has been proved of the 
prisoner at the bar, that during all this long and 
tedious trial, he has had no sleepless nights, and 
that even in the daytime, when he retires from the 
halls to his lonely cell, he sinks to rest like a 
wearied child, on the stone floor and quietly slum- 
bers till roused by the constable with his staff, to 
appear again before the jury. His counsel enjoy 
no such repose. Their thoughts by day and their 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

dreams by night are filled with oppressive appre- 
hensions that, through their inability or neglect, 
he may be condemned. 

I am arraigned before you for undue manifesta- 
tions of zeal and excitement. My answer to all 
such charges shall be brief. When this cause shall 
have been committed to you, I shall be happy in- 
deed, if it shall appear that my only error has been 
that I have felt too much, thought too intensely, 
or acted too faithfully. 

If my error would thus be criminal, how great 
would yours be if you should render an unjust 
verdict? Only four months have elapsed since an 
outraged people, distrustful of judicial redress, 
doomed the prisoner to immediate death. Some of 
you have confessed that you approved that law- 
less sentence. All men now rejoice that the pris- 
oner was saved for this solemn trial. But this 
trial would be as criminal as that precipitate sen- 
tence, if, through any wilful fault or prejudice of 
yours, it should prove but a mockery of justice. 
If any prejudice of witnesses, or the imagination 
of counsel, or any ill-timed jest shall, at any time, 
have diverted your attention; or if any pre- 
judgment which you have brought into the jury 
box, or any cowardly fear of popular opinion shall 
have operated to cause you to deny to the prisoner 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

that dispassionate consideration of his case which 
the laws of God and man exact of you, and if, 
owing to such an error, this wretched man fall from 
among the living, what will be your crime? You 
have violated the commandment, " Thou shalt not 
kill." It is not the form or letter of the trial by 
jury that authorizes you to send your fellowman 
to his dread account, but it is the spirit that sanc- 
tifies that glorious institution; and if, through 
pride, passion, timidity, weakness, or any cause, 
you deny the prisoner one iota of all the defence 
to which he is entitled by the law of the land, you 
yourselves, whatever his guilt may be, will have 
broken the commandment, " Thou shalt do no 
murder." 

There is not a corrupt or prejudiced witness, 
there is not a thoughtless or heedless witness, who 
has testified what was not true in spirit, or what 
was not wholly true, or who has suppressed any 
truth, who has not offended against the same in- 
junction. 

Nor is the Court itself above the commandment. 
If these judges have been influenced by the ex- 
citement which has brought this vast assemblage 
here, and under such influence, or under any other 
influence, have committed voluntary error, and 
have denied to the prisoner, or shall hereafter deny 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to him, the benefit of any fact or principle of law, 
then this Court will have to answer for the deep 
transgression, at the bar at which we shall all meet 
again. When we appear there, none of us can 
plead that we were insane and knew not what we 
did ; and by just so much as our ability and knowl- 
edge exceed those of this wretch, whom the world 
regards as a fiend in human shape, will our guilt 
exceed his, if we be guilty. 

PLEA FOR THE UNION 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD 

MR. PRESIDENT, I have designedly dwelt 
so long on the probable effect of disunion 
upoii the safety of the American people as to 
leave me little time to consider the other evils which 
must follow in its train. But, practically, the loss 
of safety involves every other form of public 
calamity. When once the guardian angel has 
taken flight, everything is lost. 

Dissolution would not only arrest, but extinguish 
the greatness of our country. Even if separate 
confederacies could exist and endure, they could 
severally preserve no share of the common pres- 
tige of the Union. If the constellation is to be 
broken up, the stars, whether scattered widely 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

apart or grouped in smaller clusters, will thence- 
forth shed forth feeble, glimmering and lurid 
lights. Nor will great achievements be possible 
for the new confederacies. Dissolution would 
signalize its triumph by acts of wantonness which 
would shock and astound the world. It would pro- 
vincialize Mount Vernon, and give this Capitol 
over to desolation at the very moment when the 
dome was rising over our heads that was to be 
crowned with the statue of liberty. After this 
there would remain for disunion no act of stu- 
pendous infamy to be committed. No petty con- 
federacy that shall follow the United States can 
prolong, or even renew, the majestic drama of na- 
tional progress. Perhaps it is to be arrested be- 
cause its sublimity is incapable of continuance. 
Let it be so, if we have indeed become degenerate. 
After Washington, and the inflexible Adams, 
Henry, and the peerless Hamilton, Jefferson, and 
the majestic Clay, Webster and the acute Calhoun, 
Jackson, the modest Taylor, and Scott, who rises 
in greatness under the burden of years, and Frank- 
lin, and Fulton, and Whitney, and Morse, have all 
performed their parts, let the curtain fall. 

While listening to these debates, I have some- 
times forgotten myself in marking their contrasted 
effects upon the page who customarily stands on 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the dias before me, and the venerable secretary 
who sits behind him. The youth exhibits intense 
but pleased emotion in the excitement, while at 
every irreverent word that is uttered against the 
Union the eyes of the aged man are suffused with 
tears. Let him weep no more. Rather rejoice, 
for yours has been a lot of rare felicity. You have 
seen and been a part of all the greatness of your 
country, the towering national greatness of all the 
world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bit- 
terness of anguish, who are just stepping on the 
threshold of hfe; for that greatness perishes pre- 
maturely, and exists not for you, nor for me, nor 
for any that shall come after us. 

The public prosperity ! how could it survive the 
storm? Its elements are industry in the culture of 
every fruit ; mining of all the metals ; commerce at 
home and on every sea ; material improvement that 
knows no obstacle and has no end; invention that 
ranges throughout the domain of nature; increase 
of knowledge as broad as the human mind can 
explore; perfection of art as high as human 
genius can reach; and social refinement work- 
ing for the renovation of the world. How 
could our successors prosecute these noble ob- 
jects in the midst of brutalizing civil conflict? 
What guarantee will capital invested for such pur- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

poses have, that will outweigh the premium offered 
by political and military ambition? What leisure 
will the citizen find for study or invention or art, 
under the reign of conscription ; nay, what interest 
in them will society feel when fear and hate shall 
have taken possession of the national mind? Let 
the miner in California take heed; for its golden 
wealth will become the prize of the nation that can 
command the most iron. Let the borderer take 
care; for the Indian will again lurk around his 
dwelling. Let the pioneer come back into our 
denser settlements ; for the railroad, the postroad, 
and the telegraph advance not one furlong fur- 
ther into the wilderness. With standing armies 
consuming the substance of our people on the land, 
and our navy and our postal steamers withdrawn 
from the ocean, who will protect or respect, or who 
will even know by name our petty confederacies? 
The American man-of-war is a noble spectacle. I 
have seen it enter an ancient port in the Mediterra- 
nean. All the world wondered at it and talked of 
it. Salvos of artillery, from forts and shipping in 
the harbor, saluted its flag. Princes and princesses 
and merchants paid it homage, and all people 
blessed it as a harbinger of hope for their own 
ultimate freedom. I imagine now the same noble 
vessel again entering the same haven. The flag of 
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11 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

thirty-three stars and thirteen stripes has been 
hauled down, and in its place a signal is run up, 
which flaunts the device of a lone star or a palmetto 
tree. Men ask, " Who is the stranger that thus 
steals into our waters ? " The answer, contemp- 
tuously given, is, " She comes from one of the ob- 
scure republics of North America. Let her pass 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 

SAMUEL ADAMS 

Samuel Adams, Revolutionary patriot and statesman, was 
born at Boston, Mass., September 27, 1722, and died there 
October 3, 1803. He was a member of the famous Adams 
family of Massachusetts, being second cousin to President 
John Adams. As an orator he ranks with Patrick Henry, 
James Otis, and Richard Henry Lee, who participated with 
him in the oratorical struggle which preceded, attended, and 
followed the Revolutionary War. Many authentic speci- 
mens of his writings are preserved to us, but very few of 
his speeches. The one delivered on " American Independ- 
ence" in 1776 is, however, a complete report, and brings 
out clearly the characteristics of his style, consisting of 
earnestness, intellectual, and emotional force, which over- 
came all physical weakness, and a splendid flow of living 
words, which never failed to rouse his hearers to. the highest 
pitch of enthusiasm. 

FROM the day on which an accommodation 
takes place between England and America, 
on any other terms than as independent States, I 
shall date the ruin of this country. A politic 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

minister will study to lull us into security, by 
granting us the full extent of our petitions. The 
warm sunshine of influence would melt down the 
virtue which the violence of the storm rendered 
more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquil- 
lity, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would for- 
get the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal 
which made their ancestors invincible. Every art 
of corruption would be employed to loosen the 
bond of union which renders our resistance formid- 
able. When the spirit of Hberty, which now ani- 
mates our hearts and gives success to our arms is 
extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and 
render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye aban- 
doned minions of an infatuated ministry, if per- 
adventure any should remain amongst us, remember 
that a Warren and a Montgomery are numbered 
among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies 
of your countrymen, and then say, What should 
be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our 
posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, 
and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice 
of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of 
war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face 
of the earth ! If ye love wealth better than liberty, 
the tranquillity of servitude than the animating 
contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask 
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not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick 
the hands which feed you. May your chains sit 
lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that 
ye were our countrymen! 

The period, countrymen, is already come. The 
calamities were at our door. The rod of oppres- 
sion was raised over us. We were roused from 
our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose 
until we can convey a clear and undisputed in- 
heritance to our posterity! This day we are 
called upon to give a glorious example of what the 
wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only 
in speculation. This day presents the world with 
the most august spectacle that its annals ever un- 
folded — millions of freemen, deliberately and 
voluntarily forming themselves into a society for 
their common defence and common happiness. 
Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, 
will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold 
your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and 
evincing to the world the reality and expediency 
of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of 
that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on 
earth, in delineating and recommending to man- 
kind? 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

You have now in the field armies sufficient to 
repel the whole force of your enemies and their 
base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of 
your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom ; 
they are animated with the justice of their cause, 
and while they grasp their swords can look up to 
heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are com- 
posed of wretches who laugh at the rights of hu- 
manity, who turn religion into derision, and would, 
for higher wages, direct their swords against their 
leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your 
generous enterprise, with gratitude to Heaven for 
past success, and confidence of it in the future. 
For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than 
to share with you the common danger and common 
glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than 
that my ashes may be mingled with those of a 
Warren and a Montgomery, it is that these Amer- 
ican States may never cease to be free and inde- 
pendent. 

SELF-PRESERVATION THE FIRST LAW 
OF NATURE 

DAVID PAUL BROWN 



David Paul Brown, an eminent lawyer, was born in Phil- 
adelphia, Pa., September 28, 1795, and died in the same 
city, July 11, 1872. He won distinction, not only as a 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

lawyer, but also as an author and playwright. He was a 
learned man, and an earnest, forceful speaker, winning 
many difBcult cases by the convincing style of his oratory. 

ON Tuesday night, about ten o'clock, the boat 
filled with water from above and below; the 
wind having risen; the waves having increased; 
the ice accumulating, and the passengers shrieking 
with horror at the prospect of drowning; the final, 
fatal order was given. It is not to be supposed 
that these hardy sons of the sea were unnecessarily 
alarmed. That Holmes, particularly, was a brave, 
resolute, and determined seaman, as well as a most 
humane man, no one will venture to deny ; that he 
had but one supposable object, which was to save 
such as might be saved, is equally clear. I main- 
tain, therefore, that the most favorable construc- 
tion is to be placed upon his motives ; and it is 
justly to be inferred that he acted upon the im- 
pression that the danger was imminent, and that 
death was inevitable to all, except by resorting to 
those means which he actually adopted. 

We are told, however, that he is not the judge. 
I ask, who is the judge? There is a vast deal of 
difference between judging in a storm and judg- 
ing of the representation of a storm; and, there- 
fore, it was that I said, that, in order to reach a 
righteous determination of this case, your verdict 

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should be rendered in the midst of perils such as 
have been described, instead of being pronounced 
while surrounded by all the securities and sanctions 
of the law. I agree that if you can conceive of 
any other inducement than the desire of self- 
preservation, and that of the majority of the pas- 
sengers, inducing this act, which I defy you to do, 
you may then imagine that that inducement led 
to the act, and thereby divest the prisoner of his 
present defence ; but even taking all the statements 
of the witnesses for the prosecution, highly colored 
— I will not say discolored — as they are, and 
torture them as you may, it is impossible for you 
to arrive at any other conclusion than that Holmes 
was actuated by the kindest and most generous in- 
fluences ; and certainly I need not say that kind- 
ness and generosity are opposed to wantonness and 
barbarity. 

I repeat, then, that in these circumstances of 
terror, men are left to their honest determinations. 
They are not to resort to mere imaginary evils as 
a pretext, nor are they to be supposed to resort to 
them as a pretext. If they err in their determina- 
tion, according to the rules adopted by a cold 
system of reasoning, their error, as thus detected, 
is not to be visited upon them as a crime. 

Suppose two men, occupying perfectly friendly 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

relations to each other, should be cast away, and 
both seize the same plank (to me the favorite illus- 
tration) and one should thrust the other off; would 
it not be monstrous, upon the trial of the alleged 
offender, that the plank should be brought into 
court and submitted to some men of approved skill, 
and measured and examined by square, rule, and 
compass ; its specific gravity ascertained, and the 
possibility of its sufficiency to sustain two men 
discussed and decided ; and, upon the basis of such 
calculation as that, the prisoner should be deprived 
of his liberty or his life ; when, if you had placed 
the witnesses in his precise situation, and they had 
been called upon to act upon a sudden emergency, 
they would have done precisely what he did, and 
what every principle of natural law warrants. It 
is worse than idle to suppose, that in such a critical 
juncture as this, men are to cast lots or toss up 
for their lives. In such peril a man makes his own 
law with his own right arm. 

But, say the learned counsel, had the passengers 
been permitted to remain until morning, they might 
have been saved by the Crescent. I answer, had 
they remained a single hour, they would have never 
seen the morning; every man, woman, and child 
would have weltered in the coral caves of the ocean. 
The approach of the Crescent could not, even in 
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point of fact, have operated to alleviate their 
fears; without prescience they could have antici- 
pated no such relief. Men are to act upon the 
past and present ; the future belongs to God alone. 
You are told, however, that the condition of the 
boat was not hopeless ; that she was on " the great 
highroad of nations," and that there was every 
prospect of her being picked up. The gentleman 
speaks of the great highroad of nations over the 
pathless ocean, as it were the Chesapeake and 
Delaware canal, in which two vessels could scarcely 
pass abreast. The President, steamer, sunk prob- 
ably upon this great highroad, leaving no voice 
to tell her fate. Surrounded as the boat was by 
mountains of ice, no ship would probably ever 
have reached her, if steering in that direct course. 
Fate itself seemed to forbid it; nay, no vessel, 
says the captain, would have ventured among the 
ice, had the position of the boat been known; as 
no commander, however philanthropic, would have 
so far perilled his own hopes in order to redeem 
the lives of others. The chances of rescue were 
entirely too remote then — ninety-nine chances 
against one, say the witnesses — to enter into the 
calculation of the mate and crew, had their circum- 
stances even been such as to allow them dispas- 
sionately to reason upon the subj ect ; but as it was, 
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terror had assumed the throne of reason, passion 
became judgment, and jou know the sequel. 

PHARISAISM OF REFORM 

GEORGE W. CURTIS 

George William Curtis was born in Providence, Rhode 
Island, Feb. 24, 1824, and died on Staten Island, N. Y., 
August 31, 1892. He won a high reputation as a man of 
letters, lecturer, and polished speaker among the famous men 
of his generation, and was one of the prime movers in re- 
forming the civil service. His speeches are all fine speci- 
mens of literary skill and were usually written out, polished, 
and committed to memory before being delivered, but for 
all that they possess the qualities of the oration more than 
the written composition. 

NO American, it seems to me, is so unworthy 
the name as he who attempts to extenuate or 
defend any national abuse, who denies or tries to 
hide it, or who derides as pessimists and Pharisees 
those who indignantly disown it and raise the cry 
of reform. If a man proposes the redress of any 
public wrong, he is asked severely whether he con- 
siders himself so much wiser and better than other 
men, that he must disturb the existing order and 
pose as a saint. If he denounces an evil, he is 
exhorted to beware of spiritual pride. If he 
points out a dangerous public tendency or censures 
the action of a party, he is advised to cultivate 
good-humor, to look on the bright side, to remem- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

ber that the world is a very good world, at least 
the best going, and very much better than it was 
a hundred years ago. 

Undoubtedly it is ; but would it have been better 
if everybody had then insisted that it was the best 
of all possible worlds, and that we must not de- 
spond if sometimes a cloud gathered in the sky, 
or a Benedict Arnold appeared in the patriot army, 
or even a Judas Iscariot among the chosen twelve? 
Christ, I think, did not doubt the beloved disciple 
nor the coming of His kingdom, although He knew 
and said that the betrayer sat with Him at the table. 
I believe we do not read that Washington either 
thought it wiser that Arnold's treachery should be 
denied or belittled, or that he or any other patriot 
despaired although the treason was so grave. 
Julius Caesar or Marlborough or Frederick would 
hardly be called a great general if he had rebuked 
the soldier who reported that the lines were begin- 
ning to break. When the sea is pouring into the 
ship through an open seam, everybody is aware of 
it. But then it is too late. It is the watch who 
reports the first starting of the seam who saves 
the ship. 

It is an ill sign when public men find in exposure 
and denunciation of public abuses evidence of the 
pharisaic disposition and a tendency in the critic 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

to think himself hoHer than other men. Was 
Martin Luther, cheerfully defending his faith 
against the princes of Christendom, a Pharisee? 
Were the English Puritans, iconoclasts in Church 
and State but saviours of liberty, pessimists? 
Were Patrick Henry demanding liberty or death, 
and Wendell Phillips in the night of slavery mur- 
muring the music of the morning, birds of ill 
omen? Was Abraham Lincoln saying of the 
American Union, " A house divided with itself can- 
not stand," assuming to be holier than other Amer- 
icans? To win a cheap cheer, I have known even 
intelligent men to sneer at the scholar in politics. 
But in a republic founded upon the common school, 
such a sneer seems to me to show a momentary loss 
of common-sense. It implies that the political 
opinions of educated men are unimportant and that 
ignorance is a safer counsellor of the republic. If 
the gentleman who, in this very hall last stooped to 
that sneer, had asked himself what would have been 
the fortune of this State and this country without 
its educated leadership, from Samuel Adams to 
Charles Sumner, — both sons of Massachusetts, 
both scholars in politics from Harvard College, — 
he might have spared his country, his party, and 
himself, the essential recreancy to America and to 
manhood which lies in a sneer at education. To 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the cant about the pharisaism of reform there is 
one short and final answer. The man who tells 
the truth is a holier man than the liar. The man 
who does not steal is a better man than the thief. 

THE CALL OF FREEDOM 

GEORGE W. CURTIS 

INTO how many homes along this lovely valley 
came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill 
eighty years ago ; and young men like us, studious, 
fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, 
young brothers, and sons, knew that they must 
forsake the wooded hillside, the river meadows 
golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the 
river, the summer Sunday in the old church, par- 
ents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncer- 
tain war. Putnam heard the call at his plough, 
and turned to go without waiting. Wooster heard 
it, and obeyed. 

Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful 
valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was as 
dear and love as beautiful to those young men as 
to us who stand upon their graves. But because 
they were so dear and beautiful, those men went 
out bravely to fight for them all and fall. 
Through these very streets they marched, who 
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never returned. They fell and were buried; but 
they never can die. Not sweeter are the flowers 
that make your valley fair, nor greener are the 
pines that give your river its name, than the mem- 
ory of the brave men who died for freedom. And 
yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the 
green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr 
of Liberty than every murdered man whose bones 
lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent 
plains of Kansas. 

Gentlemen, while we read history we make his- 
tory. Because our fathers fought in this great 
cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Be- 
cause two thousand years ago Leonidas stood 
against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes 
was slain, nor, thank God! that Leonidas is not 
immortal. Every great crisis of human history is 
a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leoni- 
das and his three hundred to die in it, if they can- 
not conquer. And so long as Liberty has one 
martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out 
for her, so long from that single drop of bloody 
sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts 
as countless as the forest leaves and mighty as the 
sea. 

Brothers ! the call has come to us. I bring it 
to you in these calm retreats, I summon you to 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to 
say with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, 
and with your votes when the day comes, that upon 
these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of 
the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping 
death-dews upon national prosperity and upon free 
labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to 
plant there the palm of peace, the wine and the 
ohve of a Christian civilization. I call upon you 
to determine whether this great experiment of hu- 
man freedom, which has been the scorn of despot- 
ism shall, by our failure, be also our sin and shame. 
I call upon you to defend the hope of the world. 

The voice of our brothers who are bleeding, no 
less than our fathers who bled, summons us to this 
battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, 
clustering over that vast western empire, rise up 
and call us blessed or cursed? Here are our Mara- 
thon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. 
The hearts of all good men beat with us. The 
fight is fierce — » the issue is with God. But God is 
good. 



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THE DUTIES OF AN ADVOCATE REQUIRE 
THE HIGHEST MORAL COURAGE 

JAMES T. BRADY 

James Topham Brady, born in New York, 1815, died 
1869. He was a lawyer, educated by his father, who was 
also a lawyer and a judge. The son became eminent for 
eloquence, and for almost unbroken success in the cases 
undertaken by him. In New York he was popular, both as 
a lawyer and a citizen, and especially admired as an off- 
hand speaker. He contributed largely to newspapers and 
magazines, but left no collected works. 

THE advocate is of very little use in the days 
of prosperity and peace, in the periods of 
repose, in protecting your property or aiding you 
to recover your rights of a civil nature. It is only 
when public opinion, or the strong power of gov- 
ernment, the formidable array of influence, the 
force of a nation, or the fury of a multitude, is 
directed against you, that the advocate is of any 
use. 

Many years ago, while we were yet colonies of 
Great Britain, there occurred on this island what is 
known as the famous negro insurrection — the re- 
sult of an idle story told by a worthless person, and 
yet leading to such an inflammation of the public 
mind that all the lawyers who then practised at 
the bar of New York (and it is the greatest stigma 
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on our profession of which the world can furnish 
an example) refused to defend the accused parties. 
One of them was a poor priest, of, I believe, for- 
eign origin. The consequence was that numerous 
convictions took place, and a great many execu- 
tions. And yet all mankind is perfectly satisfied 
that there never was a more unfounded rumor, 
never a more idle tale, and that judicial murders 
were never perpetrated on the face of the earth 
more intolerable, more inexcusable, more without 
palliation. How different was it in Boston, at the 
time of what was called the massacre of Massachu- 
setts subjects by British forces! The soldiers on 
being indicted, sought for counsel, and they found 
two men of great eminence in the profession to act 
for them. One of them was Mr. Adams, and the 
other Mr. Quincy. The father of Mr. Quincy 
addressed a letter, imploring him, on his allegiance 
as a son, and from affection and duty toward 
him, not to undertake the defence of these men. 
The son wrote back a response, recognizing, as 
he truly felt, all the filial affection which he owed 
to that honored parent, but, at the same time, 
taking the high and appropriate ground that he 
must discharge his duty as an advocate, accord- 
ing to the rules of his profession and the obliga- 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

tion of his official oath, whatever might be the 
result of his course. 

The struggles in the history of the world, to 
have in criminal trials an honest judiciary, a fear- 
less jury, and a faithful advocate, disclose a great 
deal of wrong and suffering inflicted on advocates 
silenced by force, trembling at the bar where they 
ought to be immovable in the discharge of their 
duty — on juries fined and imprisoned, and kept 
lying in dungeons for years, because they dared, 
in State prosecutions, to find verdicts against the 
direction of the court. The provisions of our 
own Constitution, which secure to men trial by 
jury and all the rights incident to that sacred and 
invaluable privilege, are the history of wrong 
against which those provisions are intended to 
guard in the future. This trial, gentlemen, fur- 
nishes a brilliant illustration of the beneficial re- 
sults of all this care. Nothing could be fairer 
than the trial these prisoners have had; nothing 
more admirable than the attention which you have 
given to every proceeding in this case. I know 
all the gentlemen on that jury well enough to be 
perfectly certain that whatever verdict they render 
will be given without fear or favor, on the law of 
the land, as they shall be informed it does exist,, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

on a calm and patient review of the testimony, 
with a due sympathy for the accused, and yet with 
a proper respect for the government, so that the 
law shall be satisfied and individual rights pro- 
tected. 

But, gentlemen, I do believe most sincerely that, 
unless we have deceived ourselves in regard to the 
law of the land, I have a right to invoke your 
protection for these men. The bodily presence, 
if it could be secured, of those who have been here 
in spirit by their language, attending on this de- 
bate and hovering about these men to furnish them 
protection — Lee and Hamilton and Adams and 
Washington and Jefferson, all whose spirits enter 
into the principles for which we contend — would 
plead in their behalf. I do wish that it was within 
the power of men, invoking the great Ruler of the 
Universe, to bid these doors open and to let the 
revolutionary sages to whom I have referred, and 
a Sumter, a Moultrie, a Marion, a Greene, a Put- 
man, and the other distinguished men, who fought 
for our privileges and rights in the days of old, 
march in here and look at this trial. There is 
not a man of them who would not say to you 
that you should remember, in regard to each of 
these prisoners, as if you were his father, the his- 
tory of Abraham when he went to sacrifice his son 
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Isaac on the mount — the spirit of American lib- 
erty, the principles of American jurisprudence, 
and the dictates of humanity, constituting them- 
selves another angel of the Lord, and saying to 
you, when the immolation was threatened, " Lay 
not your hand upon him." 

EULOGY OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 

JAMES G. BliAINE 

James Gillespie Blaine was born in West Brownsville, 
Pa., January 31, 1830, and died in Washington, D. C, 
January 27, 1893. In 1854 he removed to Augusta, Maine, 
where he entered the field of journalism. Four years later 
he was elected to the State legislature where he remained 
until 1862, when he was elected a member of Congress, be- 
coming speaker of the House of Representatives in 1869 and 
continuing as such until 1875. In this capacity he won 
distinction for his knowledge of parliamentary law, impar- 
tiality in administering the duties of his ofl&ce, and skill in 
controlling the House. He was a member of the United 
States Senate from 1876 to 1881, resigning the office to be- 
come Secretary of State under President Garfield. In 1884 
he was the Republican candidate for the Presidency, but 
was defeated. When Benjamin Harrison became President, 
in 1889, he appointed Mr. Blaine Secretary of State, which 
office he filled till June, 1892, when he resigned. He died a 
disappointed arid broken-hearted man through his inability 
to reach the Presidency, which was the one great ambition of 
his life. In this respect he was like Clay and Webster, all 
able statesmen, but rejected either by their party or the peo- 
ple when they sought the great honor either of a nomination 
or election to this high office. As an orator, he was one of 
the best of the period following the Civil War, and achieved 
success as a statesman through being largely instrumental 
in negotiating the treaty with England, which adopted the 
American principle of equal rights and protection for 

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naturalized as well as native citizens, and also through ne- 
gotiating reciprocity treaties for the extension of trade with 
several foreign governments. The following extract is from 
an oration delivered in the House of Representatives at 
Washington, D. C, February 27, 1882. 

HIS terrible fate was upon him in an instant. 
One moment he stood erect, strong, confi- 
dent in the years stretching peacefully out before 
him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, help- 
less ; doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, 
and the grave. 

Great in life, Garfield was surpassing great in 
death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of 
wantonness, by the red hand of murder, he was 
thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, 
from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into 
the visible presence of Death — and he did not 
quail. Not alone for the one short moment in 
which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, 
hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through 
days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, 
that was not less agony because silently borne, 
with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into 
his open grave. What blight and ruin met his 
anguished eyes, whose lips may tell — what bril- 
liant broken plans, what baffled high ambitions, 
what sundering of warm, strong manhood's 
friendships, what bitter rendering of sweet house- 
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hold ties ! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, 
a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and 
happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her 
early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose 
whole life lay in his ; the little boys not yet emerged 
from childhood's days of frolic; the fair, young 
daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into 
closest companionship, claiming every day and 
every day rewarding a father's love and care, and 
in his heart the eager rejoicing power to meet all 
demands 1 Before him desolation and great dark- 
ness ! And his soul was not shaken. His country- 
men were thrilled with instant, profound, and 
universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weak- 
ness, he became the centre of a nation's love, en- 
shrined in the prayers of a world; but all the love 
and all the sympathy could not share with him his 
suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With 
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfail- 
ing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the 
demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet, he heard 
the voice of God. With simple resignation, he 
bowed to the Divine decree. 

As the end drew near his early craving for the 

sea returned. The stately mansion of power had 

been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and 

he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from 

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its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness 
and hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a 
great people bore the pale suff^erer to the longed- 
for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God 
should will, within sight of its heaving billows, 
within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, 
fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, 
he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing 
wonders ; on its far sails whitening in the morning 
light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward to 
break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the 
red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon; 
on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. 
Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic 
meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may 
know. Let us believe that in the silence of the 
receding world he heard the great waves breaking 
on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted 
brow the breath of the eternal morning. 

THE LAW OF SELF-DEFENCE 

SEARGENT S. PRENTISS 

Seargent Smith Prentiss was born in Portland, Maine, 
Sept. 30, 1808; was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1826; 
and was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1829. He re- 
moved to Vicksburg in 1832, and represented it in the State 
legislature in 1835. Elected to Congress in 1838, he made 
a strong speech against the sub-treasury bill. He strenu- 

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ously opposed the repudiation of the Mississippi State debt, 
and in part from his dislike for that measure removed to 
New Orleans in 1845. His death occurred in Longwood, 
Mississippi, July 1, 1850. Born in New England, of Puritan 
ancestry, he possessed all the physical and mental char- 
acteristics and attributes of the cavalier, and became the 
beau-ideal of Southern chivalry. One of his greatest 
speeches was delivered in defence of his friend, Judge Wil- 
kinson, who was charged with murder, an extract from 
which is here given. 

THE law of self-defence has always had and 
ought to have a more liberal construction in 
this country than in England. Men claim more 
of personal independence here ; of course they have 
more to defend. They claim more freedom and 
license in their actions toward each other, conse- 
quently there is greater reason for apprehending 
personal attack from an enemy. In this country 
men retain in their own hands a larger portion of 
their personal rights than in any other; and one 
will be authorized to presume an intention to ex- 
ercise and enforce them, upon grounds that, in 
other countries, would not excite the slightest sus- 
picion. It is the apprehension of impending 
harm, and not its actual existence, which consti- 
tutes the justification for defensive action. If 
my enemy point at me an unloaded pistol or a 
wooden gun, in a manner calculated to excite in 
my mind apprehensions of immediate, great bodily 
harm, I am justifiable in taking his life, though 
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it turn out afterward that I was in no actual 
danger. 

So, on the other hand, if I take the life of 
another, without being aware of any intended vio- 
lence on his part, it will constitute no excuse for 
me to prove that he intended an attack upon me. 

The apprehension must be reasonable, and its 
reasonableness may depend upon a variety of cir- 
cumstances — of time, place, and manner, as well 
as of character. The same appearance of danger 
would authorize greater apprehension, and of 
course readier defensive action, at night than in 
the daytime. An attack upon one in his own house 
would indicate greater violence, and excuse stronger 
opposing action, than an attack in the street. 

Indications of violence from an individual of 
known desperate and dangerous character will 
justify defensive and preventive action, which 
would be inexcusable toward a notorious coward. 
A stranger may reasonably indulge, from the ap- 
pearance or threats of a mob, apprehension that 
would be unpardonable in a citizen surrounded by 
his friends and neighbors. 

Bearing these observations in mind, let us look 
at the situation of the defendants. They were at- 
tacked at their hotel, which, for the time being, 
was their house. They were strangers, and a 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

fierce mob had gathered around them, indicating, 
both bj word and deed, the most violent intentions. 
They were three small, weak men, without friends 
— for even the proprietor of the house, who should 
have protected them, had become alarmed and left 
them to their fate. Their enemies were, compara- 
tively, giants — dangerous in appearance and des- 
perate in action. Was there not ample ground for 
the most fearful apprehensions.? 

But the district attorney says, they are not 
entitled to the benefit of the law of self-defence, 
because they came down to supper. According 
to his view of the case, they should have remained 
in their chamber, in a state of siege, without the 
right to sally forth even for provisions ; while the 
enemy, cutting off their supphes, would doubtless 
soon have starved them into a surrender. But it 
seems there was a private entrance to the supper 
table, and they should have skulked in through 
that. No one but a craven coward, unworthy of 
the privileges of a man, would have followed such 
a course. The ordinary entrance to supper was 
through the office. They had a right to pass this 
way; no law forbade it. Every principle of in- 
dependence and self-respect prompted it. And 
through that office I would have gone, as they did, 
though the floor had been fresh sown with the 
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fabled dragon's teeth, and bristling with its crop 
of armed men. 

I care not whether the assailing party had 
deadly weapons or not ; though I will, by-and-by, 
show they had, and used them too. But the true 
question is, whether the defendants had not good 
reason for believing them armed and every way 
prepared for a desperate conflict. I have shown 
already that Dr. Wilkinson and Murdaugh did not 
transcend the most technical principle laid down 
by the commonwealth's attorney; not even that 
which requires a man to run to the wall before he 
can be permitted to defend himself — a principle 
which, in practice, is exploded in England, and 
never did obtain in this country at all. But, says 
the learned attorney. Judge Wilkinson interfered 
and took part before he was himself attacked; he 
had no right to anticipate the attack upon him- 
self ; he had no right to defend his friend ; he had 
no right to protect his brother's life. Now I 
differ from the worthy counsel on all these points: 
I think he had a right to prevent, by anticipating 
it, violence upon his person ; he had a right to de- 
fend his friend, and it was his sacred duty to pro- 
tect his brother's life. 

Judge Wilkinson was the most obnoxious of the 
party; his friends were already overpowered; he 
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could not expect to escape; and in a moment the 
whole force of the bandit gang would have turned 
upon him. 

The principles of self-defence, which pervade 
all animated nature, and act towards life the same 
part that is performed by the external mechanism 
of the eye towards the delicate sense of vision — 
affording it, on the approach of danger, at the 
same time, warning and protection — do not re- 
quire that action shall be withheld till it can be of 
no avail. When the rattlesnake gives warning of 
his fatal purpose, the wary traveller waits not for 
the poisonous blow, but plants upon his head his 
armed heel, and crushes out at once " his venom 
and his strength." When the hunter hears the 
rustling in the jungle, and beholds the large green 
eyes of the spotted tiger glaring upon him, he 
waits not for the deadly spring, but sends at once 
through the brain of his crouching enemy, the 
swift and leaden death. 

If war was declared against your country by 
an insulting foe, would you wait till your sleep- 
ing cities were wakened by the terrible music of 
the bursting bomb, till your green fields were 
trampled by the hoofs of the invader, and made 
red with the blood of your brethren? No! you 
would send forth your fleets and armies ; you would 
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unloose upon the broad ocean your keen falcons ; 
and the thunder of your guns would arouse stem 
echoes along the hostile coast. Yet this would be 
but national defence, and authorized by the same 
great principle of self -protection, which applies 
no less to individuals than to nations. 



EDUCATION 

HORACE MANN 

Horace Mann, lawyer, statesman, and educator, was born 
at Franklin, Mass., May 4, 1796, and died at Yellow Springs, 
Ohio, August 2, 1859. His fame rests mainly on his work 
as an educator, and future generations will remember him 
as one who believed and aided in spreading the "light of 
the soul " throughout the world. His language is pregnant 
with feeling, showing clearly that his heart was in his work; 
the descriptive passages are flowery and rich, while the in- 
structive portions of his discourse are clear and convincing. 

FROM her earliest history, the policy of this 
country has been to develop the minds of all 
her people, and to imbue them with the principles 
of duty. To do this work most effectually, she has 
begun with the young. If she would continue to 
mount higher and higher toward the summit of 
prosperity, she must continue the means by which 
her present elevation has been gained. In doing 
this, she will not only exercise the noblest preroga- 
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tive of government, but will co-operate with the 
Almighty in one of His sublimest works. 

The Greek rhetorician, Longinus, quotes from 
the Mosaic account of the creation what he calls 
the sublimest passage ever uttered : " God said, 
* Let there be light,' and there was light." From 
the centre of black immensity effulgence bursts 
forth. Above, beneath, on every side, its radiance 
streamed out, silent, yet making each spot in the 
vast concave brighter than the line which the light- 
ning pencils upon the midnight cloud. Darkness 
fled as the swift beams spread onward and out- 
ward, in an unending circumfusion of splendor. 
Onward and outward still th^y move to this day, 
glorifying through wider and wider regions of 
space, the infinite Author from whose power and 
beneficence they sprang. But not only in the be- 
ginning, when God created the heavens and the 
earth, did he say, " Let there be light." When- 
ever a human soul is bom into the world, its 
Creator stands over it, and again pronounces the 
same sublime words, " Let there be light." 

Magnificent, indeed, was the material creation, 

when, suddenly blazing forth in mid-space, the 

new-bom sun dispelled the darkness of the ancient 

night. But infinitely more magnificent is it when 

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the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter 
beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all 
outward things, revealing the beauty of their col- 
ors and the exquisite symmetry of their propor- 
tions and forms; when the light of reason pene- 
trates to their invisible properties and laws, and 
displays all those hidden relations that make up 
all the sciences; when the light of conscience illu- 
minates the moral world, separating truth from 
error, and virtue from vice. The light of the 
newly kindled sun, indeed, was glorious. It struck 
upon all the planets, and waked into existence their 
myriad capacities of life and joy. As it re- 
bounded from them, and showed their vast orbs all 
wheeling, circle beyond circle in their stupendous 
courses, the sons of God shouted for joy. The 
light sped onward, beyond Sirius, beyond the pole- 
star, beyond Orion and the Pleiades, and is still 
spreading onward into the abysses of space. But 
the light of the human soul flies swifter than the 
light of the sun, and out-shines its meridian blaze. 
It can embrace not only the sun of our system, 
but all suns and galaxies of suns; ay! the soul is 
capable of knowing and enjoying Him who cre- 
ated the suns themselves ; and when these starry 
lustres that now glorify the firmament shall wax 
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dim, and fade away like a wasted taper, the light 
of the soul shall still remain; nor time, nor cloud, 
nor any power but its own perversity, shall ever 
quench its brightness. Again I would say, that 
whenever a human soul is bom into the world, God 
stands over it and pronounces the same sublime 
fiat, " Let there be light ! " and may the time soon 
come, when all human governments shall cooperate 
with the Divine government in carrying this bene- 
diction and baptism into fulfilment ! 

SANCTITY OF THE UNION 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, LL.D., was born near 
Craw fords ville, Georgia, Feb. 11, 1813, and graduated at 
Franklin College, Athens, Ga., in 1832, at the head of his 
class. He studied law and took up the practice in Craw- 
fords ville, in his native county. In 1836 he was elected a 
member of the lower house of the Georgia legislature, in 
which he served five years. In 1842, he was elected to the 
State Senate; and the following year to Congress, as a Whig, 
retaining his seat till 1859, when he resigned. After the 
Kansas struggle in Congress, he became a Democrat and 
supported the Lecompton constitution in 1858. On the 
outbreak of secession in the South, Mr. Stephens opposed it, 
defending the Union in a number of public speeches. He, 
however, changed his attitude when it was evident that op- 
position was unavailing, and was elected to the vice-presi- 
dency of the new confederacy. After the war, he repeat- 
edly represented his State in Congress. He was inaugurated 
Governor of Georgia in 1882. He died March 4, 1883. 
In contrast with his small and feeble frame, Stephens 

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possessed a voice of much power and expression, and a mind 
of marvellous force and action that enabled him, despite his 
physical defects, to become one of the famous orators of his 
time. 

THE first question that presents itself is, shall 
the people of the South secede from the 
Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lin- 
coln to the Presidency of the United States? My 
countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and 
earnestly, that I do not think they ought. In my 
judgment the election of no man, constitutionally 
elected to that high office, is sufficient cause for 
any State to separate from the Union. It ought 
to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Con- 
stitution of the country. To make a point of 
resistance to the government, to withdraw from it 
because a man has been constitutionally elected, 
puts us in the wrong. We pledged to maintain 
the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to sup- 
port it. But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and 
principles are against the Constitution, and that, 
if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our 
rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. 
If he violates the Constitution, then will come our 
time to act. Do not let us break it because, for- 
sooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for 
us to strike. . . . My countrymen, I am not 
of those who believe this Union has been a curse 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

up to this time. True men, men of integrity, 
entertain different views from me on this subject. 
I do not question their right to do so ; I would not 
impugn their motives in so doing. Nor will I 
undertake to say that this government of our fa- 
thers is perfect. There is nothing perfect in this 
world, of a human origin. Nothing connected 
with human nature, from man himself to any of 
his works. You may select the wisest and best 
men for your judges, and yet how many defects 
are there in the administration of justice.? You 
may select the wisest and best men for your legis- 
lators, and yet how many defects are apparent in 
your laws ? And it is so in our government. 

But that this government of our fathers, with 
all its defects, comes nearer the ob j ects of all good 
governments than any on the face of the earth, 
is my settled conviction. Contrast it now with 
any on the face of the earth. (" England," said 
Mr. Toombs.) England, my friend says. Well, 
that is the next best, I grant ; but I think we have 
improved upon England. Statesmen tried their 
apprentice hands on the government of England, 
and then ours was made. Ours sprung from that, 
avoiding many of its defects, taking most of the 
good and leaving out many of its errors, and, 
from the whole, constructing and building up this 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 



model republic, the best which the history of the 
world gives any account of. 

Compare, my friends, this government with that 
of Spain, Mexico, the South American Republics, 
Germany, Ireland — are there any sons of that 
down-trodden nation here to-night ? — Prussia, or, 
if you travel farther East, to Turkey or China. 
Where will you go, following the sun in his circuit 
round our globe, to find a government that better 
protects the liberties of its people, and secures to 
them the blessings we enjoy.^ I think that one of 
the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an 
exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we 
are ungrateful. 

When I look around and see our prosperity in 
everything — agriculture, commerce, art, science, 
and every department of education, physical and 
mental, as well as moral advancement, and our 
colleges — I think, in the face of such an exhibi- 
tion, if we can, without the loss of power, or any 
essential right or interest, remain in the Union, 
it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to — 
let us not too readily yield to this temptation — do 
so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of 
the human race, were not without a like tempta- 
tion when in the garden of Eden. They were led 
to believe that their condition would be bettered, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

that their eyes would be opened, and that they 
would become as gods. They, in an evil hour, 
yielded. Instead of becoming gods, they only 
saw their own nakedness. 

I look upon this country, with our institutions, 
as the Eden of the world, the Paradise of the 
Universe. It may be that out of it we may become 
greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and 
sincere in telling you that I fear if we rashly 
evince passion, and, without sufficient cause, shall 
take that step, that, instead of becoming greater 
and more peaceful, prosperous, and happy — in- 
stead of becoming gods — we will become demons, 
and, at no distant day, commence cutting one an- 
other's throats. 

THE RESTORATION OF THE UNION 

AliEXANDER H. STEPHENS 

GREAT disasters are upon us and upon the 
whole country, and without inquiry how 
these originated, at whose door the fault should be 
laid, let us now, as common sharers of common 
misfortunes, on all occasions consult as to the best 
means, under the circumstances as we find them, 
to secure the best ends toward future amelioration. 
Good government is what we want. This should' 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

be the leading desire and the controlhng object 
with all, and I need not assure you, if this can be 
obtained, that our desolated fields, our barns, our 
villages, and cities, now in ruins, will soon, like the 
phoenix, rise again from their ashes, and all our 
waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom 
as the rose. 

Wars, and civil wars especially, always menace 
liberty — they seldom advance it, while they usu- 
ally end in its entire overthrow and destruction. 
Ours stopped just short of such a catastrophe. 
Our only alternative now is either to give up all 
hopes of constitutional liberty, or retrace our steps 
and look for its vindication and maintenance in 
the forums of reason and justice, instead of on 
the arena of arms ; in the courts and halls of legis- 
lation, instead of on the fields of battle. 

I have not lost my faith in the virtue, intelh- 
gence, and patriotism of the American people, or 
in their capacity for self-government. But for 
these great essential qualities of human nature to 
be brought into active and efficient exercise for 
the fulfilment of their patriotic hopes it is essen- 
tial that the passions of the day should subside, 
that the causes of these passions should not now 
be discussed, that the late strife should not be 
stirred. 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

The most hopeful prospect to this age is the 
restoration of the old Union, and with it the speedy 
return of fraternal feeling throughout its length 
and breadth. These results depend upon the peo- 
ple themselves, upon the people of the North quite 
as much as the South. The masses everywhere 
are alike equally interested in ,this great object. 
Let old issues, old questions, old differences, and 
old feuds be regarded as fossils of another epoch. 

The old Union was based on the assumption that 
it was for the best interest of the people of the 
United States to be united as they tvere, each State 
faithfully performing to the people of other 
States all their obligations under a common com- 
pact. I always said that this assumption was 
founded on broad, correct, and statesmanlike 
principles. 

And now, after the severe chastisement of war, 
if the general sense of the whole country shall 
come back to the acknowledgment of the original 
assumption, I can perceive no reason why, under 
such restoration, we may not enter upon a new 
career, exacting increased wonder in the Old 
World by grander achievements hereafter to be 
made, than any heretofore attained, by the peace- 
ful and harmonious workings of our American 
institutions of self-government. 
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NEW ENGLAND 

CAI.EB GUSHING 

Caleb Gushing, lawyer, diplomat, soldier, orator, and 
statesman, was born in Salisbury, Mass., January 17, 1800, 
and died in Newburyport, Mass., January 2, 1879. His 
speeches are full of life, denoting his sincerity and earnest- 
ness; and the beauty of his language, wealth of knowledge, 
and purity of diction show the result of his ripe scholarship. 

THE gentleman from South Carolina taunts us 
with counting the costs of that war in which 
the liberties and honor of the country, and the 
interests of the North, as he asserts, were forced 
to go elsewhere for their defence. Will he sit 
down with me and count the cost now? Will he 
reckon up how much of treasure the State of 
South Carolina expended in that war, and how 
much the State of Massachusetts ? — how much of 
the blood of either State was poured out on sea 
or land? I challenge the gentleman to the test 
of patriotism, which the army roll, the navy lists, 
and the treasury books afford. 

Sir, they who revile us for our opposition to 
the last war, have looked only to the surface of 
things. They little know the extremities of suf- 
fering which the people of Massachusetts bore at 
that period, out of attachment to the Union, — 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

their families beggared, their fathers and sons 
bleeding in camps, or pining in foreign prisons. 
They forget that not a field was marshalled on 
this side of the mountains, in which the men of 
Massachusetts did not play their part, as became 
their sires, and their " blood fetched from mettle 
of war proof." They battled and bled, wherever 
battle was fought or blood drawn. 

Not only by land. I ask the gentleman, Who 
fought your naval battles in the last war.? 
Who led you on to victory after victory, on the 
ocean and the lakes .f* Whose was the triumphant 
prowess before which the Red Cross of England 
paled with unwonted shames .f* Were they not men 
of New England ? Were these not foremost in 
those maritime encounters which humbled the pride 
and power of Great Britain.'' 

I appeal to my colleague before me from our 
common county of brave old Essex, — I appeal to 
my respected colleagues from the shores of the 
Old Colony. Was there a village or a hamlet on 
Massachusetts Bay, which did not gather its hardy 
seamen to man the gun-decks of your ships of 
war.? Did they not rally to the battle, as men 
flock to a feast.? 

In conclusion, I beseech the House to pardon 
me, if I may have kindled, on this subject, into 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

something of unseemly ardor. I cannot sit tamely 
by, in humble, acquiescent silence, when reflections, 
which I know to be unjust, are cast on the faith 
and honor of Massachusetts. 

Had I suffered them to pass without admonition, 
I should have deemed that the disembodied spirits 
of her departed children, from their ashes mingled 
with the dust of every stricken field of the Revolu- 
tion, — from their bones mouldering to the conse- 
crated earth of Bunker's Hill, of Saratoga, of 
Monmouth, would start up in visible shape, before 
me, to cry shame on me, their recreant countryman. 

Sir, I have roamed through the world, to find 
hearts nowhere warmer than hers ; soldiers nowhere 
braver; patriots nowhere purer; wives and mothers 
nowhere truer; maidens nowhere lovelier; green 
valleys and bright rivers nowhere greener or 
brighter; and I will not be silent, when I hear her 
patriotism or her truth questioned with so much 
as a whisper of detraction. Living, I will defend 
her; dying, I would pause in my last expiring 
breath, to utter a prayer of fond remembrance for 
my native New England. 



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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 

DANIEIi WEBSTER 

Daniel Webster, the greatest of modem orators, and, as 
far as we are able to judge at this far removed period, the 
equal of any of the ancient, was born in Salisbury, New 
Hampshire, January 18, 1782, and died in Marshfield, Mass., 
October 24, 1852. Although Webster was a great lawyer, 
and an able stateman, his name will live to the end of 
time not from the renown gained at the bar or in diplomacy, 
but from his transcendent genius as an orator. He excelled 
in all forms of oratory, and his productions stand in the 
front ranks of their different classes. In argumentative, 
postprandial, deliberative, dedicative, funeral, philosophic, 
and demonstrative oratory, his productions are master- 
pieces of their kind which, in individual cases, have rarely 
been equalled, and, when taken collectively, form a monu- 
ment that towers above the oratorical production of any 
other man. Daniel Webster was splendidly endowed by 
nature, and specially fitted by training, for the career of 
an orator. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, a 
master of law, a Greek and Latin scholar, and devoted all 
his life to amassing knowledge and gaining the power of 
using it to his oratorical purpose. He practised his ora- 
tions before delivering them, and never trusted to their 
" bursting forth " with " spontaneous, original, native force." 
He polished and repolished his matter until it became prac- 
tically flawless. While Webster is looked upon as an ex- 
temporaneous speaker, he never permitted himself to ad- 
dress an assembly until he had carefully thought out and 
arranged his discourse. His success in life was owing to 
his being prepared for all his undertakings, and not to any 
caprice of fortune. The following extract is the opening of 
the address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Bunker Hill Monument, at Charlestown, Mass., June 17, 
1825. 

THIS uncounted multitude before me and 
around me proves the feeling which the oc- 
casion has excited. These thousands of human 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from 
the impulses of a common gratitude turned rever- 
ently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firma- 
ment, proclaim that the day, the place, and the 
purpose of our assembling have made a deep 
impression on our hearts. 

If, indeed, there be anything in local association 
fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to 
repress the emotions which agitate us here. We are 
among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on 
ground distinguished by their valor, their con- 
stancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are 
here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, not 
to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. 
If our humble purpose had never been conceived; 
if we ourselves had never been born, the seventeenth 
of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all 
subsequent history would have poured its light, and 
the eminence where we stand a point of attraction 
to the eyes of successive generations. But we are 
Americans. We live in what may be called the 
early age of this great continent ; and we know that 
our posterity through all time are here to suffer 
and enjoy the allotments of humanity. We see 
before us a probable train of great events ; we know 
that our own fortunes have been happily cast ; and 
it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

by the contemplation of occurrences which have 
guided our destiny before many of us were bom, 
and settled the condition in which we should pass 
that portion of our existence which God allows to 
men on earth. 

We do not read even of the discovery of this 
continent, without feehng something of a personal 
interest in the event ; without being reminded how 
much it has affected our own fortunes and our own 
existence. It is more impossible for us, therefore, 
than for others, to contemplate with unaffected 
minds that interesting, I may say that most touch- 
ing and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer 
of America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, 
the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man 
sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown 
ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope 
and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts ; 
extending forward his harassed frame, straining 
westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven 
at last granted him a moment of rapture and 
ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of the 
unknown world. 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected 

with our fates, and therefore still more interesting 

to our feelings and affections, is the settlement of 

our own country by colonists from England. We 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

cherish every memorial of these worthy ancestors ; 
we celebrate their patience and fortitude; we ad- 
mire their daring enterprise; we teach our children 
to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud 
of being descended from men who have set the 
world an example of founding civil institutions on 
the great and united principles of human freedom 
and human knowledge. To us, their children, the 
story of their labors and sufferings can never be 
without its interest. We shall not stand unmoved 
on the shores of Plymouth, while the sea continues 
to wash it; nor will our brethren in another early 
and ancient colony forget the place of its es- 
tablishment, till their river shall cease to flow by it. 
No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, will 
lead the nation to forget the spots where its in- 
fancy was cradled and defended. 

But the great event in the history of the conti- 
nent, which we are now met here to commemorate, 
that prodigy of modem times, at once the wonder 
and the blessing of the world, is the American 
revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity 
and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, 
and power, we are brought together, in this place, 
by our love of country, by our admiration of ex- 
alted character, by our gratitude for signal serv- 
ices and patriotic devotion. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

The society whose organ I am, was formed for 
the purpose of rearing some honorable and durable 
monument to the memory of the early friends of 
American independence. They have thought, that 
for this object no time could be more propitious 
than the present prosperous and p.eaceful period; 
that no place could claim preference over this 
memorable spot; and that no day could be more 
auspicious to the undertaking, than the anniversary 
of the battle which was here fought. The founda- 
tion of that monument we have now laid. With 
solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to 
Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst 
of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. 
We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing 
from a broad foundation, rising high in massive 
solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain 
as long as Heaven permits the works of man to 
last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of 
which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those 
who have reared it. 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious 
actions is most safely deposited in the universal 
remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we 
could cause this structure to ascend, not only till 
it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its 
broad surfaces could still contain but part of that 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been 
spread over the earth, and which history charges 
itself with making known to all future times. We 
know that no inscription on entablatures less broad 
than the earth itself can carry information of the 
events we commemorate where it has not already 
gone ; and that no structure, which shall not out- 
live the duration of letters and knowledge among 
men, can prolong the memorial. But our object 
is, by this edifice to show our own deep sense of the 
value and importance of the achievements of our 
ancestors; and, by presenting this work of grati- 
tude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, 
and to foster a constant regard for the principles 
of the revolution. Human beings are composed, 
not of reason only, but of imagination also, and 
sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misap- 
plied which is appropriated to the purpose of giv- 
ing right direction to sentiments, and opening 
proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not 
be supposed that our object is to perpetuate 
national hostility, or even to cherish a mere 
military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We 
consecrate our work to the spirit of national in- 
dependence, and we wish that the light of peace 
may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of 
our conviction of that unmeasured benefit which 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

has been conferred on our land, and of the happy 
influences which have been produced, by the same 
events, on the general interests of mankind. We 
come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must 
forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish 
that whosoever in all coming time, shall turn his 
eye hither, may behold that the place is not un- 
distinguished where the first great battle of the 
revolution was fought. We wish that this struc- 
ture may proclaim the magnitude and importance 
of that event to every class and every age. We 
wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its 
erection from maternal lips, and that weary and 
withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the 
recollections which it suggests. We wish that 
labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst 
of its toil. We wish that', in those days of dis- 
aster, which, as they come upon all nations must 
be expected to come upon us also, desponding 
patriotism may turn its eye hitherward, and be as- 
sured that the foundations of our national power 
still stand strong. We wish that this column, ris- 
ing toward heaven among the pointed spires of so 
many temples dedicated to God, may contribute 
also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of 
dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that 
the last object on the sight of him who leaves his 
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native shore, and the first to gladden his who re- 
visits it, may be something which may remind him 
of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let 
it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the 
earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting 
day linger and play on its summit. 

THE GREEK REVOLUTION 



DANIEL WEBSTER 

Extract from a speech delivered in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, January 19, 1824). 

IT was about this time, that is to say, at the 
commencement of 1821, that the revolution 
burst out in various parts of Greece and the isles. 
Circumstances, certainly, were not unfavorable, as 
one portion of the Turkish army was employed in 
the war against Ali Pacha, in Albania, and an- 
other part in the provinces north of the Danube. 
The Greeks soon possessed themselves of the open 
country of the Morea, and drove their enemy into 
the fortresses. Of these, that of Tripolitza, with 
the city, fell into the hands of the Greeks, in the 
course of the summer. Having, after these first 
movements, obtained time to breathe, it became, 
of course, an early object to establish a govern- 
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ment. For this purpose, delegates of the people 
assembled, under that name which describes the 
assembly in which we ourselves sit, that name which 
" freed the Atlantic " a Congress, A writer, who 
undertakes to render to the civilized world that 
service which was once performed by Edmund 
Burke, I mean the compiler of the English Annual 
Register, asks, by what authority this assembly 
could call itself a congress. Simply, sir, by the 
same authority by which the people of the United 
States have given the same name to their own legis- 
lature. We, at least, should be naturally inclined 
to think, not only as far as names, but things, 
also, are concerned, that the Greeks could hardly 
have begun their revolution under better auspices ; 
since they have endeavored to render applicable to 
themselves the general principles of our form 
of government, as well as its name. This consti- 
tution went into operation at the commencement 
of the next year. In the meantime, the war with 
Ali Pacha was ended, he having surrendered, and 
being afterward assassinated, by an instance of 
treachery and perfidy, which, if it had happened 
elsewhere than under the government of the Turks, 
would have deserved notice. The negotiation with 
Russia, too, took a turn unfavorable to the 
Greeks. The great point upon which Russia in- 
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sisted, beside the abandonment of the measure of 
searching vessels bound to the Black Sea, was, that 
the Porte should withdraw its armies from the 
neighborhood of the Russian frontiers; and the 
immediate consequence of this, when effected, was 
to add so much more to the disposable force ready 
to be employed against the Greeks. These events 
seemed to have left the whole force of the Turkish 
Empire, at the commencement of 1822, in a condi- 
tion to be employed against the Greek rebellion; 
and, accordingly, very many anticipated the im- 
mediate destruction of their cause. The event, 
however, was ordered otherwise. Where the great- 
est effort was made, it was met and defeated. 
Entering the Morea with an army which seemed 
capable of bearing down all resistance, the Turks 
were nevertheless defeated and driven back, and 
pursued beyond the Isthmus within which, as far as 
it appears, from that time to the present, they 
have not been able to set their foot. 

It was in April of this year that the destruction 
of Scio took place. That island, a sort of ap- 
panage of the Sultana mother, enjoyed many 
privileges peculiar to itself. In a population of 
130,000 or 140,000, it had not more than 2,000 or 
3,000 Turks ; indeed, by some accounts, not near 
as many. The absence of these ruffian masters 
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had, in some degree, allowed opportunity for the 
promotion of knowledge, the accumulation of 
wealth, and the general cultivation of society. 
Here was the seat of modem Greek literature; 
here were libraries, printing presses, and other es- 
tablishments, which indicate some advancement in 
refinement and knowledge. Certain of the inhabi- 
tants of Samos, it would seem, envious of this 
comparative happiness of Scio, landed upon the 
island in an irregular multitude, for the purpose 
of compelling its inhabitants to make common 
cause with their countrymen against their op- 
pressors. These, being joined by the peasantry, 
marched to the city and drove the Turks into the 
castle. The Turkish fleet, lately reinforced from 
Egypt, happened to be in the neighboring seas, 
and, learning these events, landed a force on the 
island of fifteen thousand men. There was noth- 
ing to resist such an army. These troops im- 
mediately entered the city, and began an indis- 
criminate massacre. The city was fired; and in 
four days the fire and sword of the Turk rendered 
the beautiful Scio a clotted mass of blood and 
ashes. The details are too shocking to be recited. 
Forty thousand women and children, unhappily 
saved from the general destruction, were afterward 
sold in the market of Smyrna, and sent off into 
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distant and hopeless servitude. Even on the 
wharves of our own cities, it has been said, have 
been sold the utensils of those hearths, which now 
exist no longer. Of the whole population which 
I have mentioned, not above nine hundred persons 
were left living upon the island. I will only re- 
peat, sir, that these tragical scenes were as fully 
known at the congress of Verona, as they are now 
known to us ; and it is not too much to call on the 
powers that constituted that congress, in the name 
of conscience and in the name of humanity, to tell 
us if there be nothing even in these unparalleled 
excesses of Turkish barbarity, to excite a senti- 
ment of compassion; nothing which they regard 
as so objectionable as even the very idea of popu- 
lar resistance to power. 

The events of the year which has just passed 
by, as far as they have become known to us, have 
been even more favorable to the Greeks than those 
of the year preceding. I omit all details, as be- 
ing as well-known to others as to myself. Suf- 
fice it to say, that with no other enemies to con- 
tend with, and no diversion of his force to other 
objects, the Porte has not been able to carry the 
war into the Morea ; and that, by the last account, 
its armies were acting defensively and in Thes- 
saly. I pass over, also, the naval engagements 
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of the Greeks, although that is a mode of warfare 
in which they are calculated to excel, and in which 
they have already performed actions of such dis- 
tinguished skill and bravery, as would draw ap- 
plause upon the best mariners in the world. The 
present state of the war would seem to be, that the 
Greeks possess the whole of the Morea, with the 
exception of the three fortresses of Patras, Coron, 
and Modon ; all Candia, but one fortress ; and most 
of the other islands. They possess the citadel of 
Athens, Missolonghi, and several other places in 
Livadia. They have been able to act on the of- 
fensive, and to carry the war beyond the isthmus. 
There is no reason to believe their marine is weak- 
ened; probably, on the other hand, it is strength- 
ened. But, what is most of all important, they 
have obtained time and experience. They have 
awakened the sympathy throughout Europe and 
throughout America; and they have formed a 
government which seems suited to the emergency 
of their condition. Sir, they have done much. It 
would be great injustice to compare their achieve- 
ments with our own. We began our revolution 
already possessed of government and, compara- 
tively, of civil liberty. Our ancestors had for 
centuries been accustomed in a great measure to 
govern themselves. They were well acquainted 
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with popular elections and legislative assemblies, 
and the general principles and practice of free 
governments. They had little else to do than to 
throw off the paramount authority of the parent 
State. Enough was still left, both of law and of 
organization, to conduct society in its accustomed 
course, and to unite men together for a common 
object. The Greeks, of course, could act with 
little concert at the beginning; they were unac- 
customed to the exercise of power, without ex- 
perience, with limited knowledge, without aid, and 
surrounded by nations which, whatever claims the 
Greek might seem to have upon them, have af- 
forded them nothing but discouragement and re- 
proach. They have held out, however, for three 
campaigns ; and that, at least, is something. 
Constantinople and the northern provinces have 
sent forth thousands of troops ; they have been de- 
feated. Tripoli and Algiers and Egypt have con- 
tributed their marine contingents; they have not 
kept the ocean. Hordes of Tartars have crossed 
the Bosphorus ; they have died where the Persians 
died. The powerful monarchies in the neighbor- 
hood have denounced their cause, and admonished 
them to abandon it and submit to their fate. 
They have answered them, that, although two hun- 
dred thousand of their countrymen have offered up 
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their lives, there yet remain Hves to offer ; and that 
it is the determination of all, " yes, of All,'* to 
persevere until they shall have established their 
liberty, or until the power of their oppressors shall 
have relieved them from the burden of existence. 

RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE 
PILGRIMS 

DANIEIi WEBSTER 

Extract from a discourse in commemoration of the 
first settlement of New England, delivered at 
Plymouth, Mass., on Dec. 22, 1820. 

LET us not forget the religious cliaracter of 
our origin. Our fathers were brought hither 
by their high veneration for the Christian religion. 
They journeyed by its light, and labored in its 
hope. They sought to incorporate its principles 
with the elements of their society and to diffuse 
its influence through all their institutions, civil, 
political, or literary. Let us cherish these senti- 
ments, and extend their influence still more widely 
in the full conviction, that that is the happiest 
society which partakes in the highest degree of the 
mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity. 

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and 
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this occasion will soon be past. Neither we nor 
our children can expect to behold its return. 
They are in the distant regions of futurity, they 
exist only in the all-creating power of God, who 
shall stand here a hundred years hence, to trace, 
through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and 
to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress 
of their country, during the lapse of a century. 
We would anticipate their concurrence with us in 
our sentiments of deep regard for our common 
ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the 
pleasure with which they will then recount the 
steps of New England's advancement. On the 
morning of that day, although it will not disturb 
us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and 
gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, 
shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of 
the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of 
the Pacific seas. 

We would leave for the consideration of those 
who shall then occupy our places, some proof that 
we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers 
in just estimation; some proof of our attachment 
to the cause of good government, and of civil and 
religious liberty ; some proof of a sincere and ar- 
dent desire to promote everything which may en- 
large the understandings and improve the hearts 
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of men. And when, from the long distance of an 
hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they 
shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, 
which, running backward and warming with grati- 
tude for what our ancestors have done for our 
happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and 
meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they 
have arrived on the shore of being. 

Advance, then, ye future generations! We 
would hail you, as you rise in your long succes- 
sion, to fill the places which we now fill, and to 
taste the blessings of existence where we are pass- 
ing, and soon shall have passed, our own human 
duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant 
land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to 
the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New 
England. We greet your accession to the great 
inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome 
you to the blessings of good government and re- 
ligious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures 
of science and the delights of learning. We wel- 
come you to the transcendent sweets of domestic 
life, to the happiness of kindred and parents, and 
children. We welcome you to the immeasurable 
blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope 
of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth I 

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CRIME ITS OWN DETECTOR 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

AGAINST the prisoner at the bar, as an in- 
dividual, I cannot have the slightest preju- 
dice; I would not do him the smallest injury or in- 
justice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to 
the discovery and the punishment of this deep 
guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how 
much so ever it may be, which is cast on those who 
feel and manifest an anxious concern that aU who 
had a part in planning, or hand in executing, this 
deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to 
answer for their enormous crime at the bar of 
public justice. 

Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. 
In some respects it has hardly a precedent any- 
where — certainly none in our New England 
history. This bloody drama exhibited no sud- 
denly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in 
it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation 
springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, 
before resistance could begin. Nor did they do 
the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long- 
settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, 
money-making murder. It was all " hire and 
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salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of 
money against life; the counting out of so many 
pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood. 

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, 
in his own house, and in his own bed, is made 
the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. 
The deed was executed with a degree of self- 
possession and steadiness, equal to the wickedness 
with which it was planned. The circumstances, now 
clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene be- 
fore us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined 
victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful 
old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound 
slumbers held him in their soft but strong embrace. 
The assassin enters through the window, already 
prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With 
noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half -lighted 
by the moon — he winds up the ascent of stairs, 
and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he 
moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, 
till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he 
enters, and beholds his victim before him. 

The room was uncommonly open to the admis- 
sion of light. The face of the innocent sleeper 
was turned from the murderer, and the beams of 
the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged 
temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal 
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blow is given! and the victim passes, without a 
struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to 
the repose of death. It is the assassin's purpose to 
make sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though 
it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the 
blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged 
arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, 
and replaces it again over the wounds of the pon- 
iard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist 
for the pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains that 
it beats no longer! It is accomplished! The 
deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to 
the window, passes out through it as he came in, 
and escapes. He has done the murder — no eye 
has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret 
is his own, and is safe! 

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. 
Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole 
creation of God has neither nook nor comer, where 
the guilty can bestow it, and say that it is safe. 
Not to speak of that Eye which glances through 
all disguises, and beholds every thing, as in the 
splendor of noon — such secrets of guilt are never 
safe from detection, even by man. 

True it is, generally speaking, that " murder 
will out." True it is, that Providence hath so or- 
dained, and doth so govern things, that those who 
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break the great law of heaven by shedding man's 
blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery; es- 
pecially in a case exciting so much attention as 
this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. 
A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every 
man, every thing, every circumstance, connected 
with the time and place; a thousand ears catch 
every whisper; a thousand excited minds intently 
dwell on the scene; shedding all their light, and 
ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a 
blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul 
cannot keep its own secret. 

It is false to itself ; or rather, it feels an irresist- 
ible impulse of conscience to be true to itself: it 
labors under its guilty possession, and knows not 
what to do with it. The human heart was not 
made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it 
finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares 
not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is de- 
vouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, 
either from heaven or earth. 

The secret which the murderer possesses, soon 
comes to possess him. And, like the evil spirits of 
which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him 
whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his 
heart, rising to his throat, and demanding dis- 
closure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his 
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face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its 
workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It 
has become his master. It betrays his discretion, 
it breaks down his courage, it conquers his 
prudence. When suspicions from without begin to 
embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to 
entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still 
greater violence to break forth. It must be con- 
fessed, it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from 
confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. 

SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

From a speech in defence of the Union and the Con- 
stitution, delivered in the Senate of the United 
States, Jan. 26, 1830. 

THE eulogium pronounced by the honorable 
gentleman on the character of the State of 
South Carolina, for her revolutionary and other 
merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not 
acknowledge that the honorable member goes be- 
fore me in regard for whatever of distinguished 
talent or distinguished character South Carolina 
has produced. I claim part of the honor; I par- 
take in the pride, of her great names. I claim 
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them for countrymen, one and all, — the Laurences, 
the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the 
Marions, — Americans all, whose fame is no more 
to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents 
and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed 
within the same narrow limits. 

In their day and generation, they served and 
honored the country, and the whole country ; and 
their renown is of the treasures of the whole 
country. Him whose honored name the gentle- 
man himself bears, — does he esteem me less capa- 
ble of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy 
for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened 
upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of South 
Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power 
to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce 
envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratifica- 
tion and delight, rather. I thank God, that, if I 
am gifted with little of the spirit which is able 
to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, 
as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag 
angels down. 

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in 
the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit 
because it happens to spring up beyond the limits 
of my own State- or neighborhood ; when I re- 
fuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the 
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homage due to American talent, to elevated 
patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the 
country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of 
Heaven, — if I see extraordinary capacity or virtue 
in any son of the South, and if, moved by local 
prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy, I get 
up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just 
character and just fame, — may my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth ! 

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let 
me indulge in refreshing remembrances of the 
past; let me remind you that, in early times, no 
States cherished greater harmony, both of princi- 
ple and feeling, than Massachusetts and South 
Carolina. Would to God that harmony might 
again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went 
through the Revolution; hand in hand they stood 
round the administration of Washington, and felt 
his own great arm lean on them for support. Un- 
kind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, 
are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false 
principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds 
of which that same great arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium 

upon Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she 

is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There 

is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The 

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past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and 
Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and 
there they will remain forever. The bones of her 
sons, fallen in the great struggle for Independence, 
now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from 
New England to Georgia; and there they will lie 
forever. 

And, sir, where American Liberty raised its 
first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and 
sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its 
manhood, and full of its original spirit. If dis- 
cord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife 
and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if 
folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary 
and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating 
it from that Union by which alone its existence is 
made sure, — it will stand, in the end, by the side of 
that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will 
stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it 
may still retain, over the friends who gather round 
it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the 
proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the 
very spot of its origin. 



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THE CONSTITUTION THE SAFEGUARD 
OF LIBERTY 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

From a speech in honor of George Washington, de- 
livered at a public dinner in Washington, D. C, 
February 22, 1832. 

THE political prosperity which this country has 
attained, and which it now enjoys, has been 
acquired mainly through the instrumentality of 
the present government. While this great agent 
continues, the capacity of attaining to still 
higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We 
have, while this lasts, a political life capable of 
beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome 
misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary 
accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by 
active efforts, every public interest. But dis- 
memberment strikes at the very being which pre- 
serves these faculties. It would lay its rude and 
ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would 
sweep away, not only what we possess, but aU 
power of regaining lost, or acquiring new posses- 
sions. It would leave the country, not only bereft 
of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, 
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or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself 
hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and 
happiness. 

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects 
overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our 
commerce from the ocean, another generation may 
renew it ; if it exhaust our treasury, future indus- 
try may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste 
our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will 
grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. 
It were but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder 
Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should 
fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered 
by the dust of the valley. All these might be re- 
built. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of 
demolished government? Who shall rear again 
the well-proportioned columns of constitutional 
liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful 
architecture which unites national sovereignty 
with State rights, individual security, and public 
prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will 
be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the 
Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, 
a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, how- 
ever, will flow over them than were ever shed over 
the monuments of Roman or Grecian art ; for they 
will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than 
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Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of consti- 
tutional American liberty. 

But let us hope for better things. Let us trust 
in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our 
country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us 
trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the peo- 
ple, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let 
us trust to the influence of Washington's example. 
Let us hope that that fear of heaven which expels 
all other fear, and that regard to duty which 
transcends all other regard may influence public 
men and private citizens, and lead our country 
still onward in her happy career. Full of these 
gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look for- 
ward to the end of that century which is now com- 
menced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of 
Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less 
sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. 
When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do them- 
selves and him that honor, so surely as they shall 
see the blue summits of his native mountains rise 
in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the 
river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks 
he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely 
may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union 
floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as 
now, may the sun in his course visit no land more 
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free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own 
country ! 

SHAKESPEARE 

EDWIN GORDON LAWRENCE 

Edwin Gordon Lawrence, teacher of oratory and dra- 
matic art, and author of " The Power of Speech " and " The 
Lawrence Reader and Speaker," was born in Philadelphia, 
Pa., November 1, 1859. The following is an extract from a 
lecture delivered in New York during 1906 and 1907. 

OF William Shakespeare, the man, I have very 
little to say, as almost nothing is known con- 
cerning him. That he hved and died we know, 
for the evidence that proves these facts exists, and 
is at the disposal of all who seek it, but the events 
of Jiis life, except for some trifling details, are 
shrouded in mystery. Even the dates of his birth 
and marriage, and the spelling of his name, are 
uncertain. He was born in April, 1564, but on 
what day we do not know. He was, however, bap- 
tized on the twenty-sixth of that month, and as it 
was customary to take the child to the font when it 
was three days old, we conclude he was bom on the 
twenty-third. He was educated at the grammar 
school of his native town, which he attended for 
about six years, during which time he studied the 
usual English branches, and gained a smattering of 
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Latin. This was all the schooling he is known to 
have received, although there was a period of about 
five years in his life, when he first went to London, 
which he is supposed to have devoted to broaden- 
ing his education generally, and particularly to 
gaining a knowledge of French and Itahan. 

William Shakespeare was bom, as is supposed, 
on April 23, 1564*, at Stratford-on-Avon, and died 
there, exactly fifty-two years later, on April 23, 
1616. We know little more than this concerning 
the man, but the dramatist has left to us inex- 
haustible fountains of knowledge that will be a 
source of enjoyment, inspiration, and benefit to 
mankind until time shall be no more. 

When nineteen years of age he married Ann 
Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior, by 
whom he had three children, two only reaching 
maturity, Susanna, who married John Hall, a 
physician, by whom she had a daughter named 
Elizabeth, the only grandchild of the poet's to 
grow to maturity, and as she died without issue 
the direct line of descent from the great dramatist 
ceased with her death, and Judith, the wife of 
Thomas Quiney, whose three children died before 
reaching man's estate. 

So you see we do not know the exact date of 
his birth, neither the date when the religious cere- 
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monj was performed which united him to Ann 
Hathaway, nor the date of his leaving Stratford, 
nor what he did with himself for five years after 
reaching London, nor even the correct way of 
spelling his name. And all that the many com- 
mentators can tell us of the life of this remarkable 
man, beyond the few facts I have stated, is that it 
is " supposed " to have been " such and such," it 
is " believed " he did " so and so," and thus it goes 
through chapters and volumes devoted to legends, 
surmises, and guesses which give us no knowledge, 
but only tend to confuse us, concerning the earthly 
career of the man to whom God entrusted the 
greatest mind that ever dwelt within a mortal 
sphere, and which left children of its creation to 
live long after all issue of his corporeal frame had 
passed into oblivion. 

Some claim that we can know Shakespeare the 
man by means of the characters he created, that 
as they are the children of his brain they conse- 
quently reflect his feelings and desires. This I 
consider erroneous, because Shakespeare was pri- 
marily a dramatist and depicted men and things 
as he saw them and not, like the poet, as he fancied 
them. He knew man and nature as no other writer 
has known them, and he tells us only of the men 
and things he knew except, as in " The Tempest " 
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and " A Mid-Summer Night's Dream," he gives 
wing to his imagination and creates beings of 
fancy, " trifles light as air," who " are such stuff 
as dreams are made of," or puts into the mouth 
of Mercutio the description of Queen Mab in order 
to drive sadness away from the love-sick Romeo. 
This is not Shakespeare speaking, but the puppets 
he created for the amusement of men, just as the 
actor when impersonating a character does not give 
expression to his own thoughts and feelings, but 
reproduces, as it were, those of the character he is 
impersonating. As the painter in drawing the 
sunset does not create a sun but makes a picture 
of what he sees in the firmament above him, so 
also Shakespeare reproduces what he sees with his 
eye and not what he feels with his heart. Were 
not this the case he would have been of so complex 
a nature as to make him absolutely unhuman. 
The following is an interesting anecdote concern- 
ing him, showing his human and humorous qualities, 
which was found in a diary kept by a barrister 
named Manningham where, under date of 1602, 
appears this entry : — " Upon a time when Bur- 
bage played Richard III, there was a lady so 
charmed by his performance that she requested 
him to visit her that night, and that he should 
announce himself as Richard III. Shakespeare 
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overheard the conversation and determined to ' cut 
out ' his fellow player by arriving first at the 
fair dame's house. This he could readily do as 
Burbage had to get into his everyday clothes be- 
fore leaving the theatre, and as the lady had never 
seen Burbage, except as Richard III, she would 
not know the difference between him and Shake- 
speare. However, the poet arrived first and was 
being gorgeously entertained with food and wine 
when a message was brought that Richard III was 
at the door. Shakespeare, not wishing to be dis- 
turbed, sent back answer that William the Con- 
queror was before Richard III." 

Shakespeare does not reveal his sympathies 
through his characters, but causes them to move as 
will best suit his purpose from the standpoint of 
the stage, and does not reward or punish them 
according to their deserts. Otherwise the fair 
Ophelia would not have perished a suicide, Desde- 
mona would not have been murdered, Romeo and 
Juliet would not have been parted, nor such terri- 
ble affliction visited upon the head of poor old 
Lear. The hand of fate apparently controlled the 
creations of Shakespeare just as the hand of Provi- 
dence regulates the lives of us mortals and " directs 
our ends rough hew them as we will." He moved 
his characters in the mimic world in order that he 
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might produce a powerful play that would attract 
audiences to the theatre, and not to point a moral, 
reform the world, or indicate his own character. 

Shakespeare depicted all the emotions the human 
being is capable of feeling, and drew true to life 
the men and women of all climes and stations. 
The Itahan Romeo, the French Katherine, Othello 
the Moor, English Harry, Shylock the Jew, Ham- 
let the Dane, and so on through his characters, he 
causes them to stand out on the printed page as 
though brought back from the grave to revisit, at 
the wish of the reader, " the glimpses of the 
moon." The crafty, cynical villain speaks in 
lago; the open, buoyant spirit in Mercutio; the 
physically courageous, but mentally cowardly, in 
Macbeth; the vain, sorely punished in Lear; and 
the far-seeing politician in Marc Antony. In 
Juliet he depicts the warm-hearted, trusting girl; 
in Rosalind one whose deep affectionate nature is 
masked by her mirth and wit; in Lady Macbeth 
the ambitious, unscrupulous woman; and in Cor- 
delia, the faithful child, who would rather sacrifice 
her share in her father's kingdom than flatter his 
ears with meaningless protestations of affection 
which her true heart told her should not be uttered. 
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of prince and 
peasant words appropriate to each, and depicts 
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accurately the scenes of camp, palace, and hovel. 
In fact his genius swept the gamut of passion 
from the foundation to the apex, and created all 
kinds, classes, and conditions of beings so true 
to nature as to make one almost believe that in his 
person lived the magician Prospero armed with his 
fabled wand. 

DESTINY 

EDWIN GORDON 3LAWIIENCE 

HUMAN destiny, or such an event as is plainly 
brought about by man's action, whereby he 
is controlled by himself, is easily understood and 
plainly discernible; as, he chose the wrong course 
through life and failure was his destiny. But 
how can we explain the following? Napoleon 
took his army to Russia, but its destiny was death. 
Who or what caused the destruction of that once 
glorious and apparently irresistible body of men 
welded into a vast machine of fighting force by 
the marvellous genius of the great Captain? Did 
some unseen and unknown power purposely set the 
icy barriers across its path, and baffle its progress 
by blinding snows, in order to defeat the human 
will; or was the failure of the attempt to subju- 
gate Russia caused by the mistakes of this same 
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human will? Was it foreordained by a wise Provi- 
dence that this vainglorious man should fail ere 
he started on his errand of conquest ; or was it but 
a natural result of his actions, just as failure was 
the destiny of the man who chose the wrong 
course ? 

Man is the architect of his own fate and builder 
of his own fortune, and to him belongs the credit 
for success, or the blame for failure. As the 
architect requires instruments with which to draw 
the plans of his structure, and the builder tools 
with which to erect his building, so also does man 
require the means of fashioning his fate; and the 
greatest of these means is sympathy. Without 
sympathy for his fellow, man cannot hope for 
enduring success, because of the opposition to his 
plans which his selfishness is bound to create, and 
which in time will gather in such force as to com- 
pletely overwhelm him; as the snows and ice im- 
peded the progress of the French army, and finally 
caused its destruction, so also is selfish man de- 
feated by the vices brought into being by his 
selfishness. 

Napoleon was a man utterly devoid of sym- 
pathy, and thought only of self. Had he thought 
of that army as a body of men, and not merely 
as a machine for accomplishing his purpose, he 
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would have made proper provision for its comfort 
and safety, and not mercilessly exposed it to the 
fury of the Russian winter. Man's cruelty and 
lack of thought, not Divine destiny, was the cause 
of that dreadful catastrophe. 

It would be folly to walk along the edge of a 
precipice, and, if we should fall over the brink 
to the rocks below, cry out that fate threw us 
there. If we cannot swim, we are but fools if we 
leap into the ocean and expect not to drown; or 
dash our heads against a rock and expect to escape 
injury. It is our own lack of judgment that is to 
blame if we go forth into the forest in the dead of 
winter insufficiently clad, and are bitten by the 
cold; or if we drop from the top of a high build- 
ing instead of descending by the stairs. Lack of 
wisdom, not cruelty of fate, would be responsible 
for all evil that befell us under such circumstances ; 
and to the same cause must we attribute the failure 
of Napoleon in Russia. 

Want of sympathy was the main defect in the 
character of this otherwise great man. Had he 
any sympathy for Josephine, who had given the 
best years of her life to aiding his fortunes, when 
he mercilessly divorced her in order to marry the 
Austrian ? No ; he thought only of self, thought 
of strengthening his position by an alliance with 
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that ancient monarchy, thought of perpetuating 
his name by leaving a son, and sons of that son, 
to rule for ages over France and the world. Such 
selfish ambition was doomed to failure, not by 
destiny, but by the wrongs and suffering of others 
who were the cause of arousing opposition to his 
purpose, which even his powerful will was incapa- 
ble of overcoming. 

Individual man is but a part of man and cannot 
work selfishly in opposition to his other parts and 
obtain ultimate success, no more than one arm of 
a man can work contrary to the other and accom- 
plish results ; and when Napoleon set out on his 
errand of selfishness, he defeated himself and was 
not vanquished by destiny. 

Did Charles the First lose his head on account 
of destiny? Was it ordained before he came into 
the world that a Cromwell would be created in order 
to destroy him; or did his own actions cause that 
Cromwell to arise as a representative of the people 
who had suffered by the acts of Charles? Did 
Louis XVI go to the guillotine by decree of des- 
tiny ; or for his failure to remedy the abuses that 
had accumulated under a succession of kings of 
that name? Had these monarchs possessed sym- 
pathy for their people, and exercised the power 
they possessed in order to better the material con- 
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dition of their fellow man, instead of crushing him 
to the earth like a worm, those very people would 
have called them blessed in place of exacting their 
blood. Both these monarchs went to the scaffold 
by decree of their own errors and not the mandate 
of destiny. 

Is Washington idolized by his countrymen and 
admired by civilized man the world over, by com- 
mand of destiny; or for his unselfish devotion to 
that country and his endeavors toward the better- 
ment of the condition of mankind? Did he not 
put aside vaulting ambition, and consider the weal 
of others? Was his army at Valley Forge saved 
from destruction during that terrible winter by 
destiny, or the unselfish sacrifices of his country- 
men who composed that noble band? Did he not 
share with them their sufferings, instead of seizing 
on the glory alone? Yes; and his star will shine 
in the zenith, when " the man of destiny's " has set 
forever below the horizon of time. 

Was Grant a man foreordained by fate to mar- 
shall the hosts of the North, and thus prevent the 
destruction of that Nation brought into being by 
the sword of Washington ? No ; he fitted himself 
for the great task by so moulding his character 
as to give him the tenacity of purpose which alone 
insured success; and thus, by his own efforts, he 
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made himself the logical and necessary man of the 
hour, and was not the mere child of destiny. 

Was Lincoln a product of destiny ; or the natu- 
ral result of a life of unremitting toil and absolute 
devotion to, and love of, mankind? Assuredly 
the latter. 

Thus history, through all ages, shows us, in 
unmistakable terms, that man is the creator of his 
own destiny by fitting himself for success or fail- 
ure according to the uses he makes of the powers 
which a Divine Creator has planted in his soul, and 
which, by his own actions and life, he can either 
cultivate or destroy. Therefore, as he possesses 
these powers, he is the master of his own destiny. 

EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER FIRST DAY 

JOHN MILTON 

John Milton was born in London, England, December 9, 
1608, and died there November 8, 1674. The following is 
an extract from " Paradise Lost," Book IV. 

WHAT day I oft remember, when from sleep 
I first awaked, and found myself reposed* 
Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where 
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. 
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound 
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread 
Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved, 
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Pure as the expanse of Heaven; I thither went 
With inexperienced thought, and laid me down 
On the green bank, to look into the clear 
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky. 
As I bent down to look, just opposite, 
A shape within the watery gleam appeared. 
Bending to look on me ; I started back, 
It started back ; but pleased I soon returned. 
Pleased it ;returned as soon with answering looks 
Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed 
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire, " 
Had not a voice thus warned me : ' What thou seest. 
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself; 
With tliee it came and goes ; but follow me. 
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays 
Thy coming and thy soft embraces — he 
Whose image thou art; him thou shalt enjoy. 
Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear 
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called 
Mother of human race.' What could I do. 
But follow straight, invisibly thus led? 
Till I espied thee, fair indeed and tall, 
Under a platane; yet methought less fair. 
Less winning soft, less amiably mild. 
Than that smooth watery image : back I turned ; 
Thou following criedst aloud, * Return, fair Eve, 
Whom fliest thou? whom thou fliest of him thou art. 
His flesh, his bone: to give thee being I lent. 
Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart, 
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Substantial life to have thee by my side 
Henceforth an individual solace dear; 
Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim 
My other half.' With that thy gentle hand 
Seized mine; I yielded, and from that time see 
How beauty is excelled by manly grace 
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.'* 

THE OCEAN 

LORD BYRON 

Lord George Noel Gordon Byron was born in London, 
England, January 22, 1788, and died in Missolonghi, Greece, 
April 19, 1824. The following is an extract from ** Childe 
Harold's Pilgrimage." 

OH! that the Desert were my dwelling-place. 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race. 
And, hating no one, love but only her! 
Ye elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted — Can ye not 
Accord me such a being? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot.^* 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore. 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: 
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I love not Man the less, but Nature more. 

From these our interviews, in which I steal 

From all I may be, or have been before, 

To mingle with the Universe, and feel 

What I can ne*er express, yet cannot all conceal. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage save his own. 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 

Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise. 

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies. 

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 

And howling to his Gods, where haply lies 

His petty hope in some near port or bay. 

And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
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The oak leviathans^, whose huge ribs make 

Their clay creator the vain title take 

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; 

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake. 

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 

Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou. 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 

Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 

Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 

The image of Eternity — the throne 

Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 

The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
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Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy 

I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me 

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea 

Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear. 

For I was as it were a child of thee, 

And trusted to thy billows far and near, 

And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., 
Feb. 22, 1819, and died there Aug. 12, 1891. The following 
extract is from the " Ode Recited at the Harvard Com- 
memoration," July 21, 1865. 

SUCH was he, our Martyr-Chief, 
Whom late the Nation he had led. 
With ashes on her head. 
Wept with the passion of an angry grief: 
Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
To speak what in my heart will beat and bum. 
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 
Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Save on some worn-out plan. 
Repeating us by rote; 

For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw. 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
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Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 

Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. 

Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 

One whose meek flock the people joyed to be. 

Not lured by any cheat of birth. 

But by his clear-grained human worth, 

And brave old wisdom of sincerity! 

They knew that outward grace is dust; 

They could not choose but trust 

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill. 

And supple-tempered will 

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and 

thrust. 
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. 
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, 
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. 
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind. 
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
Nothing of Europe here. 

Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still. 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
Could Nature's equal scheme deface 
And thwart her genial will; 
Here was a type of the true elder race. 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 
I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 

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In him who condescends to victory 

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait. 

Safe in himself as in a fate. 

So always firmly he: 

He knew to bide his time. 

And can his fame abide, 

Still patient in his simple faith sublime. 

Till the wise years decide. 

Great captains, with their guns and drums. 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 

But at last silence comes ; 

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. 

Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 

Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. 

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

THE LOST LEADER 1 

ROBERT BROWNING 

Robert Browning was bom in Camberwell, London, 
land. May 7, 1812, and died in Venice, Italy, Decemb 
1889. 

JUST for a handful of silver he left us; 
Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 
Lost all the others she lets us devote. 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 

* Wordsworth.. 

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So much was theirs who so little allowed. 

How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 

We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him. 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye. 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 

Shakespeare was of us, Milton wa;^ for us. 

Burns, Shelley, were with us — they watch from their 

graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen! 
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! 

We shall march prospering — not through his pres- 
ence; 
Songs may inspirit us — not from his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done — while he boasts his quiescence. 
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire. 
Blot out his name, then — record one lost soul more, 
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. 
One more devils' triumph and sorrow for angels. 
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! 
Life's night begins ; let him never come back to us ! 
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight. 
Never glad, confident morning again! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gal- 
lantly. 
Menace our heart ere we master his own; 
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Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. 
Pardoned in Heaven^ the first by the throne! 

THANATOPSIS 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Mass., 
November 3, 1794, and died in New York City, June 12, 
1878. 

TO him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house. 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart — 
Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground. 
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
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Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth to be resolved to earth again; 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix for ever with the elements — 

To be a brother to the insensible rock. 

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings. 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good — 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between — 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all. 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste. 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun. 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
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The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom.— Take the wings 

Of morning; traverse B area's desert sands, 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 

Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there; 

And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw 

In silence from the living, and no friend 

Take note of thy departure! All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one as before will chase 

His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men. 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years — matron, and maid. 

And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 

By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
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Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night. 
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

DAFFODILS 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumber- 
land, England, April 7, 1770, and died at Rydal Mount, 
near Grasmere, England, April 23, 1850. 

I WANDERED, lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills. 
When all at once I saw a crowd — 
A host of golden daffodils 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees. 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way. 
They stretched in never-ending line ' 
Along the margin of a bay: 
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced, but they 
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: 
A poet could not but be gay, 
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In such a jocund company; 

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought : 

For oft, when on my couch I lie, 
In vacant or in pensive mood. 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude, 
And then my heart with pleasure fills. 
And dances with the daffodils. 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Mass., 
August 29, 1809, and died in Boston, Mass., October 7, 
1894. 

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign. 
Sails the unshadow'd main — 
The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings. 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings. 
And coral reefs lie bare, 

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; 
Wreck'd is the ship of pearl ! 
And every chamber'd cell, 

[311] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell. 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 
Before thee lies reveal'd, — 
Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil; 
Still, as the spiral grew. 

He left the past year's dwelling for the new. 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through. 
Built up its idle door, 

Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no 
more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 
While on mine ear it rings, 

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 
As the swift seasons roll! 
Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
Till thou at length art free. 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting seal 
[312] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE MAKING OF MAN 

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born in London, Eng- 
land, April 5, 1837, and died in Putney, England, April 10, 
1909. The following extract is from "Atalanta in Caly- 
don." 

BEFORE the beginning of years 
There came to the making of man 
Time, with a gift of tears; 
Grief, with a glass that ran; 
Pleasure, with pain for leaven; 
Summer, with flowers that fell; 
Remembrance, fallen from heaven; 
And madness, risen from hell; 
Strength, without hands to smite; 
Love that endures for a breath; 
Night, the shadow of light; 
And life, the shadow of death. 

And the high gods took in hand 
Fire, and the falling of tears. 
And a measure of sliding sand 
From under the feet of years ; 
And froth and drift of the sea; 
And dust of the laboring earth; 
And bodies of things to be 
In the houses of death and of birth; 
And wrought with weeping and laughter, 
[313] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

And fashioned with loathing and love. 

With life before and after. 

And death beneath and above; 

For a day and a night and a morrow. 

That his strength might endure for a span 

With travail and heavy sorrow. 

The holy spirit of man. 

From the winds of the north and the south 

They gather as unto strife; 

They breathed upon his mouth. 

They filled his body with life; 

Eyesight and speech they wrought 

For the veils of the soul therein; 

A time for labor and thought, 

A time to serve and to sin. 

They gave him light in his ways. 

And love, and a space for delight; 

And beauty and length of days. 

And night, and sleep in the night. 

His speech is a burning fire. 

With his lips he travaileth; 

In his heart is a blind desire. 

In his eyes foreknowledge of death ; 

He weaves and is clothed with derision; 

Sows, and he shall not reap ; 

His life is a watch for a vision 

Between a sleep and a sleep. 

[314] 



11 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS 

ROBERT BURNS 

Robert Burns was born near Ayr, Scotland, January 25, 
1759, and died at Dumfries, Scotland, July 21, 1796. 

MY heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the 
deer ; 
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. 
My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
The birth-place of valor, the country of worth; 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 
The hills of the Highlands forever I love. 

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow; 
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; 
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; 
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 
My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, 
My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. 
My heart *s in the Highlands, wherever I go. 



[815] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
FLOWERS 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, 
Maine, February 27, 1807, and died in Cambridge, Mass., 
March 24, 1882. 

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and 
olden, 
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden. 
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. 

Stars they are, wherein we read our history, 
As astrologers and seers of eld; 
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, 
Like the burning stars, which they beheld. 

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, 
God hath written in those stars above; 
But not less in the bright flowers under us 
Stands the revelation of his love. 

Bright and glorious is that revelation. 
Written all over this great world of ours ; 
Making evident our own creation. 
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers. 

And the poet, faithful and far-seeing. 
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 
[316] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Of the self-same^ universal being, 
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. 

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, 
Blossoms flaunting in the eve of day, 
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining. 
Buds that open only to decay ; 

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues. 
Flaunting gayly in the golden light; 
Large desires, with most uncertain issues, 
Tender wishes, blossoming at night ! 

These in flowers and men are more than seeming; 
Workings are they of the self-same powers. 
Which the poet, in no idle dreaming, 
Seeth in himself and in the flowers. 

Everywhere about us are they glowing. 
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born ; 
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing. 
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn ; 

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing. 
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field. 
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing. 
In the centre of his brazen shield; 

Not alone in meadows and green alleys. 
On the mountain-top, and by the brink 
[317] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys, 
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink; 

Not alone in her vast dome of glory, 
Not on graves of bird and beast alone. 
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary. 
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone ; 

In the cottage of the rudest peasant, 
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers. 
Speaking of the Past unto the Present, 
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers ; 

In all places, then, and in all seasons. 
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings^ 
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 
How akin they are to human things. 

And with childlike, credulous affection 
We behold their tender buds expand ; 
Emblems of our own great resurrection. 
Emblems of the bright and better land. 



[S18] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN 

ALFRED TENNYSON 

Lord Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincoln- 
shire, England, August 6, 1809, and died in Aldworth, Sur- 
rey, England, October 6, 1892. The following extract is 
from " The Princess." 

i i T) LAME not thyself too much," I said, " nor 

JL-# blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws; 
These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal. 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable. 
How shall men grow ? but work no more alone ! 
Our place is much: as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her — - 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn, and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undevelopt man, 
[319] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

But diverse : could we make her as the man. 

Sweet love were slain: his dearest bond is this. 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 

The man be more of woman, she of man; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height. 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 

Till at the last she set herself to man. 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, fuU-summ'd in all their powers. 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each. 

Distinct in individualities. 

But like each other ev'n as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men; 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: 

Then springs the crowning race of human-kind. 

May these things be ! ** 



[320] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
BURNS 

JOHN GREENLEAP WHITTIER 

John Greenleaf Whittier was born near Haverhill, Mass., 
December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, N. H., Sep- 
tember 7, 1892. 

NO more the simple flowers belong 
To Scottish maid and lover — 
Sown in the common soil of song, 
They bloom the wide world over. 

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers. 
The minstrel and the heather — 
The deathless singer and the flowers 
He sang of — live together. 

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! 
The moorland flower and peasant! 
How, at their mention. Memory turns 
Her pages old and pleasant ! 

The gray sky wears again its gold 
And purple of adorning. 
And manhood's noonday shadows hold 
The dews of boyhood's morning — 

The dews that washed the dust and soil 
From off the wings of pleasure — 
The sky that flecked the ground of toil 
With golden threads of leisure. 
21 [321] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

I call to mind the summer day — 
The early harvest mowing, 
The sky with sun and cloud at play. 
And flowers with breezes blowing. 

I hear the blackbird in the corn. 
The locust in the haying; 
And, like the fabled hunter's horn. 
Old tunes my heart is playing. 

How oft that day, with fond delay, 
I sought the maple's shadow, 
And sang with Burns the hours away. 
Forgetful of the meadow ! 

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead 
I heard the squirrels leaping — 
The good dog listened while I read. 
And wagged his tail in keeping. 

I watched him while in sportive mood 
I read " The Twa Dogs' " story, 
And half believed he understood 
The poet's allegory. 

Sweet day, sweet songs ! — The golden hours 
Grew brighter for that singing, 
From brook and bird and meadow flowers 
A dearer welcome bringing. 

[322] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

New light on home-scene nature beamed^ 

New glory over woman; 

And daily life and duty seemed 

No longer poor and common. 

I woke to find the simple truth 

Of fact and feeling better 

Than all the dreams that held my youth 

A still repining debtor — 

That nature gives her handmaid, art^ 
The themes of sweet discoursing, 
The tender idyls of the heart 
In every tongue rehearsing. 

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl. 
Of loving knight and lady. 
When farmer-boy and barefoot girl. 
Were wandering there already ? 

I saw through all familiar things 

The romance underlying — 

The joys and griefs that plumed the wings 

Of Fancy skyward flying. 

I saw the same blithe day return. 
The same sweet fall of even, 
That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 
And sank on crystal Devon. 

[S23] 



LAWRENCE READERAND SPEAKER 

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills 
The sweet-briar and the clover — 
With Ayr and Doon my native rills, 
Their wood-hymns chanting over. 

0*er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 
I saw the Man uprising — 
No longer common or unclean. 
The child of God's baptizing. 

With clearer eyes I saw the worth 
Of life among the lowly ; 
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 
Had made my own more holy. 

And if at times an evil strain. 
To lawless love appealing. 
Broke in upon the sweet refrain 
Of pure and healthful feeling. 

It died upon the eye and ear. 
No inward answer gaining; 
No heart had eye to see or hear 
The discord and the staining. 

Let those who never erred forget 
His worth, in vain bewailings ; 
Sweet Soul of Song ! — I own my debt 
Uncancelled by his failings ! 

[ 324 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Lament who will the ribald line 
Which tells his lapse from duty — 
How kissed the maddening lips of wine, 
Or wanton ones of beauty — 

But think, while falls that shade between 
The erring one and heaven, 
.That he who loved like Magdalen, 
Like her may be forgiven. 

Not his the song whose thunderous chime 
Eternal echoes render — 
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 
And Milton's starry splendor ! 

But who his human heart has laid 
To nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
To love a tribute dearer? 

Through all his tuneful art how strong 

The human feeling gushes ! 

The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and blushes ! v 

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 
So " Bonnie Doon " but tarry ! 
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme. 
But spare his Highland Mary ! 

[ S25 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
ODE TO THE BARDS 

JOHN KEATS 

John Keats was born in London, England, October 29, 
1795, and died at Rome, Italy, February 33, 1821. This 
poem was written on the blank page before Beaumont and 
Fletcher's "The Fair Maid of the Inn." 

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, 
Ye have left your souls on earth ! 
Have ye souls in heaven too, 
Double-liv'd in regions new? 
Yes, and those of heaven commune 
With the spheres of sun and moon ; 
With the noise of fountains wondrous. 
And the parle of voices thund'rous ; 
With the whisper of heaven's trees 
And one another, in soft ease 
Seated on Elysian lawns 
Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns ; 
Underneath large blue-bells tented. 
Where the daisies are rose-scented. 
And the rose herself has got , 

Perfume which on earth is not; 
Where the nightingale doth sing 
Not a senseless, tranced thing. 
But divine melodious truth; 
Philosophic numbers smooth; 
Tales and golden histories 
Of heaven and its mysteries. 
[ 226 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Thus ye live on high^ and then 
On the earth ye live again ; 
And the souls ye left behind you 
Teach us, here, the way to find you. 
Where your other souls are joying, 
Never slumber'd, never cloying. 
Here, your earth-bom souls still speak 
To mortals, of their little week; 
Of their sorrows and delights ; 
Of their passions and their spites ; 
Of tEeir glory and their shame ; 
What doth strengthen and what maim. 
Thus ye teach us, every day, 
Wisdom, though fled far away. 

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, 
Ye have left your souls on earth ! 
Ye have souls in heaven too, 
Double-liv'd in regions new ! 



[327] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
TO THE SKYLARK 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Field Place, Sussex, 
England, August 4, 1792, and was drowned in the Gulf of 
Spezia, July 8, 1822. 



H 



"AIL to thee, blithe spirit! 
Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher. 
From the earth thou springest. 
Like a cloud of fire; 
The blue deep thou wingest. 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 
Of the setting sun. 
O'er which clouds are brightening. 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale, purple even 
Melts around thy flight; 
Like a star of heaven. 
In the broad daylight. 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 
[328 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 
With thy voice is loud. 
As, when night is bare. 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
flowed. 

What thou art we know not ; 
What is most like thee ? 
From, rainbow-clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see. 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

Like a poet hidden 
In the light of thought. 
Singing hymns unbidden. 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 

Like a high-born maiden, 
In a palace tower. 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 
[3291 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Like a glow-worm golden, 
In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the 
view: 

Like a rose embowered 
In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered. 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged 
thieves. 

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass. 
Rain-awakened flowers. 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

Teach us sprite or bird 
What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

Chorus hymeneal. 
Or triumphant chant. 
Matched with thine would be all 
' But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
[ 330 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

What obj ects are the fountains 
Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 

With thy clear, keen joyance 
Languor cannot be: 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee: 
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

Waking, or asleep 
Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream; 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 

We look before and after. 
And pine for what is not: 
Our sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 
Hate, and pride, and fear; 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 
[331 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound; 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 

Teach me half the gladness 
That thy brain must know. 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow. 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

THE CHASE 

SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Au- 
gust 15, 1771, and died in Abbotsford, Scotland, September 
21, 1832. The following extract is from " The Lady of the 
Lake." 

THE stag at eve had drunk his fill, 
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill. 
And deep his midnight lair had made 
In lone Glen Artney's hazel shade; 
But, when the sun his beacon red 
Had kindled on Ben Voirlich's head. 
The deep-mouth'd bloodhound's heavy bay 
Resounded up the rocky way, 
And faint, from farther distance borne. 
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn. 
[ 832} 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

As Chief, who hears his warder call, 
" To arms ! the f oemen storm the wall," 
The antler'd monarch of the waste 
Sprung from his heathery couch in haste. 
But, ere his fleet career he took. 
The dew-drops from his flanks he shook; 
Like crested leader proud and high, 
Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky; 
A moment gazed adown the dale, 
A moment snuff'd the tainted gale, 
A moment listen'd to the cry. 
That thicken'd as the chase grew nigh; 
Then, as the headmost foes appear'd. 
With one brave bound the copse he clear'd. 
And, stretching forward free and far. 
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var. 

Yell'd on the view the opening pack; 
Eock, glen, and cavern, paid them back; 
To many a mingled sound at once 
The awaken'd mountain gave response. 
A hundred dogs bay*d deep and strong, 
Clatter'd a hundred steeds along. 
Their peal the merry horns rung out, 
A hundred voices joined the shout; 
With hark and whoop and wild halloo. 
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. 
Far from the tumult fled the roe. 
Close in her covert cower'd the doe, 
[333] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

The falcon^ from her cairn on high, 
Cast on the rout a wondering eye. 
Till far beyond her piercing ken 
The hurricane had swept the glen. 
Faint and more faint, its failing din 
Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn. 
And silence settled wide and still, 
On the lone wood and mighty hill. 

Less loud the sounds of sylvan war 

Disturb'd the heights of Uam-Var, 

And roused the cavern, where *t is told, I 

A giant made his den of old; 

For ere that steep ascent was won. 

High in his pathway hung the sun. 

And many a gallant, stay'd perforce, 

Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, 

And of the trackers of the deer, ^ 

Scarce half the lessening pack was near; 

So shrewdly on the mountain side 

Had the bold burst their mettle tried. 

The noble stag was pausing now. 
Upon the mountain's southern brow. 
Where broad extended, far beneath. 
The varied realms of fair Menteith. 
With anxious eye he wandered o'er 
Mountain and meadow, moss and moor. 
And ponder'd refuge from his toil, 
[334.] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

By far Lochard or Aberfoyle. 
But nearer was the copsewood grey, 
That waved and wept on Loch-Achray, 
And mingled with the pine-trees blue 
On the bold cliffs of Benvenue. 
Fresh vigor with the hope returned, 
With flying foot the heath he spurn'd. 
Held westward with unwearied race^ 
And left behind the panting chase. 

'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er, 
, As swept the hunt through Cambus-more ; 
What reins were tighten'd in despair, 
When rose Benledi's ridge in air; 
Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath, 
Who shunn'd to stem the flooded Teith, 
For twice that day, from shore to shore. 
The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er. 
Few were the stragglers, following far. 
That reach'd the lake of Vennachar; 
And when the Brigg of Turk was won 
The headmost horseman rode alone. 

Alone, but with unbated zeal. 
That horseman plied the scourge and steel; 
For jaded now, and spent with toil, 
Emboss'd with foam, and dark with soil. 
While every gasp with sobs he drew, 
The laboring stag strain'd full in view. 
[ 335 ] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, 

Unmatch'd for courage, breath, and speed. 

Fast on his flying traces came 

And all but won that desperate game; 

For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch. 

Vindictive toil'd the bloodhounds staunch; 

Nor nearer might the dogs attain. 

Nor farther might the quarry strain. 

Thus up the margin of the lake. 

Between the precipice and brake. 

O'er stock and rock their race they take. 

The hunter marked that mountain high. 
The lone lake's western boundary. 
And deem'd the stag must turn to bay. 
Where that huge rampart barr'd the way; 
Already glorying in the prize. 
Measured his antlers with his eyes; 
For the death-wound and death-halloo, 
Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew ; — 
. But thundering as he came prepared. 
With ready arm and weapon bared. 
The wily quarry shunn'd the shock. 
And turn'd him from the opposing rock; 
Then, dashing 'down a darksome glen. 
Soon lost to hound and hunter's ken. 
In the deep Trosachs' wildest nook 
His solitary refuge took. 
There, while close couch'd, the thicket shed 
[336] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head^ 
He heard the baffled dogs in vain 
Rave through the hollow pass amain. 
Chiding the rocks that yell'd again. 

Close on the hounds the hunter came. 
To cheer them on the vanish'd game; 
But, stumbling in the rugged dell, 
The gallant horse exhausted fell. 
The impatient rider strove in vain 
To rouse him with the spur and rein, 
For the good steed, his labors o'er, 
Stretch*d his stiff limbs, to rise no more; 
Then, touch'd with pity and remorse. 
He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse. 
** I little thought, when first thy rein 
I slack'd upon the banks of Seine, 
That Highland eagle e*er should feed 
On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed! 
Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day. 
That cost thy life, my gallant grey ! " 



[ ^37 I 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 
THE RAVEN 

EDGAR ALLAN POE 

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Baltimore, Md., February 
19, 1809, and died there October 7, 1849. 

ONCE, upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered 
weak and weary, 

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten 
lore — 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came 
a tapping, 

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my cham- 
ber door: 

" 'T is some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my 
chamber door — 

Only this, and nothing more.'* 

Ah, distinctly I remember! It was in the bleak De- 
cember, 

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost 
upon the floor. 

Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to 
borrow 

From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the 
lost Lenore — 

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels 
name Lenore — 

Nameless here forevermore. 

[338] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple 
curtain 

Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never 
felt before ; 

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood 
repeating 

" 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my cham- 
ber door — 

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber 
door ; — 

This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no 

longer, 
" Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I 

implore ; 
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came 

rapping. 
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my 

chamber door. 
That I scarce was sure I heard you," — here I opened 

wide the door : — 
Darkness there, and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there 

wondering, fearing. 
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to 

dream before; 
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave 

no token, 

[339] 



LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

And the only word there spoken was the whispered 

word, ** Lenore ! " 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the 

word, " Lenore ! *' 
Merely this, and nothing more. 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within 
me burning. 

Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than 
before : 

" Surely," said I, ** surely that is something at my 
window lattice; 

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery 
explore — 

Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery ex- 
plore ; — 

'T is the wind, and nothing more/' 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a 
flirt and flutter. 

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days 
of yore; 

Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant 
stopped or stayed he; 

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my 
chamber door — 

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my cham- 
ber door — 

Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into 
smiling, 

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it 
wore; 

** Though thy crest be shorn and shaven^ thou," I 
said, " art sure no craven. 

Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the 
Nightly shore — 

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plu- 
tonian shore ! " 

Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse 
so plainly — 

Though its anwer little meaning, little relevancy bore: 

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human be- 
ing 

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his cham- 
ber door — 

i 

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his cham- 
ber door. 
With such name as " Nevermore.'* 

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke 

only 
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did 

outpour. 
Nothing further then he uttered — not a feather then 

he fluttered — 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends 

have flown before — 
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have 

flown before." 
Then the bird said, " Nevermore/* 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly 

spoken, 
" Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock 

and store. 
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful 

Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one 

burden bore — 
Till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden 

bore 
Of * Never-nevermore/ ** 

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into 

smiling. 
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, 

and bust and door; 
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to 

linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of 

yore — 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous 

bird of yore 
Meant in croaking " Nevermore/* 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable ex- 
pressing 

To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my 
bosom's core; 

This, and more, I sat divining, with my head at ease 
reclining 

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight 
gloated o'er. 

But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamplight 
gloating o'er. 

She shall press — ah, nevermore ! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from 

an unseen censer 
Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the 

tufted floor. 
" Wretch ! " I cried, " thy God hath lent thee, by these 

angels he hath sent thee 
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of 

Lenore ! 
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost 

Lenore ! " 
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

*' Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, 
if bird or devil! 

Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee 
here ashore — 

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land en- 
chanted, 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I 

implore — 
Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell 

me, I implore ! " 
Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 

** Prophet ! ** said I, *' thing of evil — prophet still, if 

bird or devil! 
By that heaven that bends above us — by that God we 

both adore — 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant 

Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name 

Lenore — 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels 

name Lenore." 
Quoth the raven, *' Nevermore." 

" Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " 
I shrieked, upstarting — 

** Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plu- 
tonian shore! 

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul 
hath spoken! 

Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above 
my door ! 

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form 
from off my door I " 

Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is 

sitting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber 

door ; 
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that 

is dreaming. 
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his 

shadow on the floor; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating 

on the floor 
Shall be lifted — nevermore! 



MARC ANTONY'S ORATION 

SHAKESPEARE 

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Eng- 
land, April 23, 1564, and died there April 23, 1616. 

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your 
ears; 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them. 
The good is oft interred with their bones; 
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious; 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault. 
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, — 
For Brutus is an honorable man, 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

So are they all, all honorable men, — 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 

But Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 

Whose ransom did the general coffers fill; 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown. 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; 

And, sure, he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke. 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause; 

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? 

O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts. 

And men have lost their reason ! — Bear with me ; 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 

And I must pause till it come back to me. 

• •••••• 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world; now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

masters! if I were dispos'd to stir 
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong. 
Who, you all know, are honorable men. 

I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you. 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

But here 's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar ; 

I found it in his closet ; 't is his will. 

Let but the commons hear this testament — 

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read — 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds. 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood, 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. 

And, dying, mention it within their wills. 

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 

Unto their issue. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle: I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on; 
'T was on a summer's evening, in his tent, 
That day he overcame the Nervii. 
Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through; 
See what a rent the envious Casca made; 
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it. 
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

If Brutus so unkindly knock' d, or no; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Ceesar's angel: 

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him! 

This was the most unkindest cut of all; 

For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 

Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face. 

Even at the base of Pompey's statue. 

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! 

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down. 

Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us. 

O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel 

The dint of pity; these are gracious drops. 

Kind souls, what! weep you when you but behold 

Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here. 

Here is himself, marr'd as you see, with traitors. 

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 
They that have done this deed are honorable. 
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not, 
That made them do it; they are wise and honorable. 
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: 
I am no orator, as Brutus is. 
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, 
That love my friend; and that they know full well 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

That gave me public leave to speak of him. 
For I have neither vnt, nor words, nor worth. 
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech. 
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb 

mouths. 
And bid them speak for me; but, were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar that should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 

SPEECH OF BRUTUS 

SHAKESPEARE 
OPENING, 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for 
my cause, and be silent, that you may hear; be- 
lieve me for mine honor, and have respect to mine 
honor, that you may believe; censure me in your 
wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the 
better judge. 

BODY. 

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend 

of Csesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar 

was no less than his. If then that friend demand 

why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my an- 

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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

swer, — Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I 
loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were 
living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were 
dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I 
weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rej oice at it ; 
as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was am- 
bitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, 
joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death 
for his ambition. Who is here so base that would 
be a bondman .f^ If any, speak, for him have I 
oflPended. Who is here so rude that would not 
be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I of- 
fended. Who is here so vile that will not love his 
country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. 
I pause for a reply. 

AIL None, Brutus, none. 

CONCLUSION. 

Then none have I offended. I have done no 
more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The 
question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; 
his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, 
nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered 
death. 

Here comes his body, mourned by Marc Antony, 
who, though he had no hand in his death, shall 
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LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 

receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the 
commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With 
this I depart, — that, as I slew my best lover for 
the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for 
myself, when it shall please my country to need 
my death. 



THE END 



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